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Bela Fleck, musical ambassador
Vampire Weekend may be the band receiving the most buzz leading up to SXSW Music, but the Afro-centric inspired melodies of the band took a back seat to the real deal on day three of the SXSW Film Festival.
Grammy-award winning Banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck, who has made a name for himself over the last 20 years playing with his band the Flecktones, decided it was high time that someone re-introduce the banjo to its native home, the African continent. It was this idea, one that was born from a failed pitch to him to do a safari-style banjo camp in Africa (huh?), that led the musician and his brother, filmmaker Sascha Paladino, to head to Africa three years ago to document Fleck playing in multiple villages and towns across the country.
The result of their three year labor of love is the film “Throw Down Your Heart.” The name of the film is derived from the translation of the port town in Tanzania, Bogamoyo, which served as a point of departure and the breaking of spirits of African slaves.
The movie is an amazing testament to the power of music, not just in the communities in Africa that the film crew visits but amongst the visitors and their hosts. Fleck had not met any of the musicians with whom he played during his trip (excepting Oumou Sangare), so the genuine appreciation and sense of amazement upon first sitting down to share each other’s music is palpable in the film.
From his visits to Uganda, Tanzania, Mali and Gambia, the birthplace of the banjo, the viewer is offered intimate insight to the customs of the African people and the ritualistic and spiritual role that music plays in their lives. And despite the language barrier, it is clear that the language of music is a universal one that obviously allowed Fleck to touch the lives of the people he visited and vice versa.
His travels to Africa helped Fleck change his “rhythmic ideas and ideas of what makes great music.” The path to this newfound passion and understanding of people and music leaves the audience, in a surrogate sense, as enriched as the film’s participants.
“Throw Down Your Heart” screens again Wednesday and Friday at 11 a.m. at the Alamo Ritz.
Sunday’s screening was preceded by VH1 Rock Docs party at Maggie Mae’s, and whether it was the free barbecue and drinks, or Fleck playing a truncated set, the place was buzzing. Given the crowd for the music and the one overflowing into the bar and upstairs to the roof, along with grumblings about a paucity of drink tickets, it seems the free grub and schmoozing probably had as much appeal as anything. Spotted in the crowd were the Zellner brothers, Morgan Spurlock, festival producer Matt Dentler and Austin film eminence gris Johhn Pierson.
On a music movie side note: I had a nice conversation with musician and actor Chris Thomas King, whose credits include “Ray” and “Oh Brother Where Art Thou.” After briefly bemoaning the fact that, as with the banjo, many African-Americans have set aside the guitar, this time in favor of the turntables, King told me he is planning to begin work on a new film about the legendary Chicago label Chess Records, so expect that in the coming years.
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