Super-jazz freakout bluegrass picker
Béla Fleck's broad three-CD concept album has ambitious intentions, but ultimately ends up feeling a bit scattered. The idea seems to have been to record an album that sounds like sitting in a car and flipping through radio stations -- hearing snippets of hip-hop, Chinese opera, Irish folk, Hawaiian ukulele, mid-'80s funk, and, of course, bluegrass and jazz, then expanding that experience out to three entire discs. If any group on the planet could pull this off, it could only be
Fleck and his
Flecktones, but the concept (being as convoluted as it is) makes for a rather uneven listen.