Musical genres can be helpful for fans: They allow music to be categorized; grouped with other artists that sound similar. If you like Metallica, you will probably like Slayer. If you like Chet Atkins, you should check out Tommy Emmanuel. (If you like James Ingram and Michael McDonald, please, check out Jeff Giles.)

Genres also allow people to make broad generalizations about what sort of music they like (e.g. “I love metal” or “I like everything except country”). Whether such statements are good or bad is subjective, but as a musician myself, I think they are limiting. I tend to hear music structurally, and find things to like and dislike in every genre. I don’t want to do away with genres, but I do appreciate artists who run up against the walls from time to time, and expose people to music that they have never heard before.

Few musicians in history have done more to blow up boundaries between styles of music than virtuoso banjo player Béla Fleck. Nominated for more different Grammy award categories than anyone in history (and a nine-time winner), Fleck has ripped the banjo from its strict confines as a bluegrass instrument and stretched its boundaries into almost every genre of music. Combining an improviser’s soul with a virtuoso’s technique and dedication to his craft, Fleck crosses between jazz, bluegrass and classical music with ease and aplomb.

Though some fans doubtless believe that the banjo sprang fully formed from Earl Scruggs‘ hands in the 1940s, the truth is the roots of the instrument are in West Africa, in traditional instruments like the Akonting. In 2005, Béla Fleck went to four countries in Africa with a film crew, with the goal of meeting, playing and recording with traditional African musicians, to seek out the roots of the banjo and to expose his sizeable fan base to new and beautiful music, which has a hard time reaching American ears. The result is Throw Down Your Heart, both an album available now, and an award-winning documentary tracing Béla’s journey, which debuts in New York on April 24.

On March 27, Béla was kind enough to take a few minutes to talk to us about the film, the album, and a few other matters before his soundcheck for that evening’s concert.

Let’s talk about Throw Down Your Heart. I read that you had some concept of wanting to go to Africa after you found out that the banjo’s roots were African, but talk a little about how it actually came together in 2005 and how you actually got out there.

Yeah, I’ve been loving African music for a long time, and every time I hear something acoustic or rhythmically interesting I get excited and I want to know more about it. So along with that, knowing the banjo originally came from there, combined to be an irresistible thing to do, but it took until 2005 to do it. That was a year the Flecktones took a year off – the first year we took off in 15 or 17 years of being a band. We had always been full-time. So I was looking for something really fun and different to do that year, that I normally wouldn’t have time to do. It’s impossible to take six weeks in the middle of a Flecktones year, so all of a sudden I had the time, and this was the project I most wanted to do. I guess part of me was thinking it would be quite a big effort. If I’m going to be traipsing around Africa, I’d rather do it in my 40s than my 60s. (more…)