Defining a New Era in Jazz...Beautifully

Jazz has been known for being a genre that's impossible to pin down to any one sound, which is most recently due to its obsessive fusions with rock, folk, and world music styles. These fusions keep jazz anchored in a listenable, popular realm. Meanwhile its other vein has branched out into "avant-garde," "free jazz," and other types that are more demonstrations of artist's self-absorbed experiments in music theory than enjoyable sounds that are pleasing to the average listener's ear.
So, along comes Bela Fleck and the Flecktones-- made up of banjo, guitar, piano, sax, bass, and synthesized drums-- a combination of bluegrass, jazz, funk, gospel, and blues-- and a collaboration of musicians whose jams are stratospheric in both technical mastery and creative beauty. Just by hearing their live performance in this two disc set you see that these guys were made for music--literally; Victor Wooten, the bassist whose been playing since he was five years old, curves his body around his fretless electric until player and instrument cannot be distinguished. All of them have chops, all of them have soul, and their music is FUN and mind-blowing at the same time--it will please both the amateur music lover and the jazz cat.
Live Art is by far the best representation of this groundbreaking group--for an example of their skills, check out Flying Saucer Dudes: the name is deceptively childish, the tune is a riveting mind-bender of 10/8 time with explosive solos that are flawless.
As a bonus, great pianist Chick Corea sits in for a rap number about world peace. His presence in their group at a live performance is ample proof that these guys are serious...and onto something awesome.