Throw Down Your Heart
Bela Fleck’s journey to Africa and the origin of his instrument – the banjo
Tags: Misc DVD 2009 Categories: DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Nov 4th, 2009
I remember seeing Bela Fleck for the first time years ago (back when Howard Levy still played with his band) and being completely blown away. His combination of bluegrass, jazz and even pop music was something that seemed familiar and original at the same time. The fact that he took the banjo to the forefront of the musical soundscape in a new way only helped matters. Since then I have seen him perform a couple of times and have picked up a number of his albums. When I heard the man going to Africa to record an album I was interested. When the documentary of the making of that album came up for review, I jumped at the chance.
Throw Down Your Heart is the documentary of Bela Fleck taking the banjo back to Africa to record an album with local musicians. For fans of the artist, this is not only a great look at his talent and versatility, but also the origins of his instrument and his journey to explore it.
About 10 minutes in we see the first collaboration with a massive percussion instrument that is something like a massive wooden xylophone and the multitude of people it takes to play it. This scene shows that music is a communal experience as the whole village gets in on the act.
It wasn’t until almost 30 minutes into the film when I first completely became awestruck with Bela Fleck performing with some women doing a traditionally A Cappella tune. His banjo playing fit seamlessly into vocal harmonies and hand-clapped rhythms, and wound up showing just how some of the traditional music of Africa really is linked to the slave songs of America which would end up being the basis for much of our modern music.
His collaboration with Hukwe Zawose’s band sounds like something that would be a home with Bela Fleck’s regular band, The Flecktones. The collaboration with Maasai is otherworldly. We do see the akontig, the predecessor to the banjo native to Gambia, and naturally Bela Fleck plays with some local musicians – and the result is phenomenal. In Mali he gets taken aback by a local guitar player that plays in a way that he is not only familiar with but he is unsure he can keep up with. The blues riffing with banjo and groit is unexpected and intense. There are several other musical highlights as well, just going to demonstrate how diverse and interesting music of all kinds can be.
On the DVD there is over an hour of deleted scenes that simply can’t be missed. The “call and response” musical exploration with the thumb piano and banjo alone is worth the added time. The last deleted scene is a jam with Bela Fleck on banjo and several other local musicians and it is at times hard to tell which instrument is the banjo because it fits in so well – demonstrating the point of the excursion to Africa in the first place.
The audio commentary with Bela Fleck and director Sascha Paladino is certainly worth checking out. Not only do we get some insight into the making of the film, we also learn the two people behind this film are brothers. That, and the trip was undertaken January and February of 2005 and the audio commentary in June of this year. Quite a big jump in time between execution and final release. There’s discussion of who appears in the film and has actually seen it as well as people getting paid, logistics, and a whole lot more.
If you don’t like African music, you won’t like this film because it is very central and essentially the whole point of the journey. Those with a broader musical sensibility will certainly enjoy the feature even if they don’t particularly like the “genre” showcased here. This isn’t necessarily a “making of the record” documentary, but a musical journey.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Great music + Great exploration of the music and instrument + Special features worth checking out |
9.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
| - If you don't like Banjo, you most likely won't like this | |
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| As a fan of Bela Fleck, I was hoping to find Throw Down Your Heart. Not only did I enjoy the film, bu enjoyed musicI don't normally hear and learned a little bit along the way. | |
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Tags: Misc DVD 2009
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Nov 4th, 2009 and is filed under DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
