Here's the transcription of my conversation with Tony Trischka in January 2001. He was wonderful to interview, in spite of the fact that we were both under the weather with a nasty flu bug. I used several of Tony's anecdotes in my story about Fleck for bluegrass now.

C: For context, please tell me what you're working on at the moment.
T: At the moment I have this electric band, doing mostly my own music. We've been together for about 4 years. We're going to start recording a new album at the end of February for Rounder Records, and I also, in amongst the band gigs, I do solo gigs as well. That's an ongoing thing, and I'm working on two banjo instruction books right now also, writing those.
C: Cool! A lot of people on the Flecktones bulletin board are great fans of yours, so I'll mention that to them.
T: Oh, great! Thank you!

C: Do you recall your first meeting with Béla Fleck?
T: I don't exactly remember when he came to the door, but I remember getting a call from him when he was 16 years old. I was living in the Bronx, one block from Yankee Stadium at the time, and he was living in Manhattan, and he wanted banjo lessons. He had already taken some banjo lessons from a guy named Marc Horowitz. Marc had shown him some bluegrass things, some Earl Scruggs things. I think he'd had a couple of other teachers as well. So when he came to me he could already play. My first album had just come out around that time, and he was very interested in learning how to play my stuff, and marc had played a few things of mine, but he had trouble with some of it. So he said 'Why don't you go directly to him [Trischka]? So I showed him the progressive things that I was doing at the time and he just lapped it up in very short order. I honestly can't remember how long I gave him lessons for – a few months, five months, six months, whatever it was, it wasn't a real long time. At a certain point, I just said, 'You really don't need lessons anymore from me. You've got the idea, for sure.' You can always show someone a little more, but he really had it.
C: God, it didn't take long at all.
T: No, no - he was just obviously the most… amazing student I've ever had.

C: What did you tell him to listen to in those days? Did you tell him to go out and buy some Earl Scruggs, or to listen to jazz?
T: I have no exact memory… I can just theorize, I can make a pretty good guess on it, but I just don't remember. In retrospect, I probably would have shown him a lot more Scruggs stuff. I'd only been teaching for a couple years at that point, so I was really wide open – "Oh, you want to learn that? Here!" I probably didn't insist on Earl Scruggs as much as I would now. I was listening to a lot of fusion back then, like Chick Corea and Return to Forever, Weather Report, the Mahavishnu Orchestra… so probably if he wasn't already listening to it, I was saying, 'Well, here's what I listen to, check these guys out. I can't remember if he was already checking that stuff out, or if he did because I suggested it.
C: So he was fearless even then?
T: Oh, absolutely! And after he left me, he went up to Boston and took lessons with this guy Billy Novick, who was a sax player and – I think – a clarinet player.
C: He took banjo lessons from a sax player?
T: Yes.
C: Oh, that's beautiful!
T: Yeah, just getting his jazz thing together… I'm not a jazz player, per se, I've got a good attitude toward it, but I don't play note for note Charlie Parker, although I've done a little bit of that over the years… but Béla really wanted to get the jazz thing happening. So he went up there. I still have sheets of exercises he worked up on the banjo – scale exercises, and stuff you would do if you wanted to become a valid jazz player. So he was doing that when he was 17 and 18 years old. All the time that I spent working on Scruggs and the traditional players [at that age], he spent working on jazz. That's why he leapt into that field so forcefully.
C: That makes a lot of sense. Getting back to Billy Novick… who is he?
T: He'd be a good person to check out. I can't remember anyone really approaching him I get approached a reasonable amount by people wanting to find out about Béla, but he was, as far as I can tell, a real influential guy. He's in the Boston area.

C: Well, this article will focus on Béla's bluegrass connections but should I ever get it together enough to write about B for any sort of jazz publication I will look him up. Let's go back for a moment. What were the most important things you taught him about playing the banjo?
T: The main underlying thing – again, it's hard to remember exact specifics – but I'm sure it was just the idea of having a completely wide-open attitude. This is a MUSICAL instrument, it's not just a BLUEGRASS instrument – you can do anything with it. You can do jazz, you can do classical, you can do rock & roll… and just experiment and find things, which is something I still teach people, check out Earl, check out Ralph Stanley, check out the bluegrass people… but also… just go up the neck and move your fingers around, find pretty sounds… you don't even have to know what you're doing. That's how I approached it – and how I still approach it, at times. Just move my fingers around, and find a really pretty pattern, or a nice sound. Then figure it out afterwards.

C: Did you keep in touch with him after he left New York to join Tasty Licks?
T: Yeah, we've been in touch from the beginning.
C: What did you think about his decision to do that? He was so young… to go to Boston, and just sorta go for it – what did you think about that?
T: Oh, I thought it was a really good move, to get with a professional band, do a record for Rounder…

C: In 1982, you recorded Fiddle Tunes For Banjo with Béla and Bill Keith. Who conceived that project?
T: You know, I honestly don't remember – if it came from Rounder, or me, or Béla, or Billy… I just don't remember how it came to pass. We did a short little tour based on that record. It was great, we played in Boston, New York, and D.C…. played the Birchmere and put a band together. Béla had a set, Bill Keith had a set, and I had a set, so we did three date little concerts, like.
C: Can you describe Béla's involvement with that project?
T: We were just on our own, so he just got his own thing together… I'd have to look at the CD to see. I wasn't in the studio with him or anything like that, except for that one tune that we all did together.

C: Ten years later, you worked on Solo Banjo Works; this time, it was just the two of you. How did that album come together?
T: We had both had an interest in doing a solo banjo project for Rounder, and had for a while. Rounder was a little leery of doing a whole album of solo banjo by him, and a separate one by me, they weren't sure how well it would sell, so they figured if they put 'em both together on one album, you know, 'that's gonna be more likely to bring us a return on our money'. So we did that, and we both did most of the recording with Louie Fleck, Béla's brother. Béla might have done some somewhere else, but I did all of mine with Louie. He engineered it in NYC.
C: Is that what he does?
T: That's one of the things he does… he plays music and has a reggae band, does musical production and that sort of thing.
C: How did Béla's music evolve during that 10-year period?
T: Um… Hard to – I'd have to listen to a recording from 1980 and then listen to one from 1990, which would have been the end of Newgrass [Revival]. He'd always been a very coherent player. In other words, my playing – not to say that I'm incoherent, but I'd be… I wouldn't be as direct as a player, I'd be like, move my fingers around, and {tape burp} would come out, that kind of thing. To some extent anyway. Whereas Béla, maybe because of the jazz training, would perhaps hear notes in his head before he started playing them. It's a standard jazz dictum, to play what you hear, and if you don't have anything to say, don't say it – in other words, don't just run off at the mouth, musically speaking. I think Béla just got ever more focused in that direction, as time when on. I don't think he made a radical change between 1980 and 1990 in his overall approach – although one thing – I can't remember exactly when he was talking about this, it might have been in the late eighties – he was really trying to come up with a more melodic way of playing – not in the technical sense, but to really bring out melodies rather than when he would be improvising, he'd just have a piece scale-based, where you can hear the exercises that led into that kind of improvisation, get to the point where you transcend the technical aspects, and are able to just play flowing melodies, beautiful melodies, which is something I think I can hear in his playing. He started moving in that direction during that time.

C: Masters of the Five-String Banjo, the book you wrote with Pete Wernick, included your interview with Béla. Did anything in that interview surprise you?
T: I don't think so. I haven't hardly looked at that book since it came out, but I don't remember there being anything like, "Wow, I didn't know that!"

C: You've worked closely with dozens and dozens of some of the very best performers in bluegrass and new acoustic music. What does Béla bring to the table as a musician, and as a band mate?
T: In terms of bluegrass?
C: Yes.
T: I think, I've seen him a number of times doing his bluegrass thing – this struck me when we were both doing this festival out in Colorado – I think he was with Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas –
C: Are you talking about Telluride?
T: No, Rocky – Rocky –
C: Rockygrass.
T: Rockygrass. I find when I'm playing in a kinda more traditional setting that I'll play more Scruggs-oriented things – I'll straighten out what I do, be a little more chameleon-like, and play to that side. Whereas Béla was just doing what he does, in a bluegrass context. He was playing all those single string and melodic things, and was approaching it that way. So I think he, more than I… It depends. I mean, he was also playing with Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas, so it's not like he was playing with Charlie Waller and Curly Ray Cline or something. So he was playing with experimental musicians to begin with. You would expect it to be toned down a little bit in a bluegrass setting perhaps, but Béla was just doing his thing, which I thought was really great, you know? It was like, 'Okay, well, this is a different context, but I'm still ME.'
C: Have you ever seen him perform with any real hardcore traditional bluegrass people, and do you think he WOULD tone down his style?
T: He sat in and did some TV show with Bill Monroe in the late 80s or early 90s. I don't think so. I don't think I've actually seen him do that.

C: Which bluegrass musician would you most like to see Béla perform or collaborate with?
T: Hmmm, that's a good question… it's more like, who HASN'T he played with over the years? That's a hard one. I guess… Alison Krauss, although he's probably played with her at some point. I think he would really complement her style because she's not strict bluegrass. I'd be curious to see what he would do to complement her music. They do these really pretty songs sometimes with really nice chord progressions. I guess I would say Alison Krauss, because I think he'd be a really good match for that band.
C: Jerry Douglas said Ralph Stanley, which I thought was pretty interesting. And I personally would love to see him do something with Chris Thile, the little monster on the mandolin –
T: - who was just on with Dolly Parton last night, on the Letterman show, I guess.
C: Oh, really? I tried to stay up late last night to watch Leno, because Bruce Hornsby with Ricky and Scott Vestal were gonna be on. I interviewed Scott yesterday for this article and he was in LA doing sound checks for the Tonight Show. In my flu-induced state I fell asleep about five minutes before the spot. Arrgghh!
T: I didn't see that but I heard about it. Actually, if you have Scott Vestal's number, I wouldn't mind getting that from you.
C: Sure, I'll give it to you before we hang up. When was the last time you performed live with Béla?
T: I did a couple of things a few months ago… he was doing a tour with the Flecktones and he had the tabla player with him, and Paul McCandless… he started to have a slightly expanded Flecktones thing. We have this routine where we do four hands on one banjo – we do this Don Reno tune "Follow the Leader". When we do our own duet shows, for the encore, he'll come out by himself and explain that I broke a string, and I'll be out in a minute, and he says, well, I'll just start the tune, and of course I'm just hanging out backstage waiting. And then I come out and play the left hand while he plays the right hand. And then the ultimate aspect is that we're both playing – it's literally four hands on one banjo, I'm kind of coming from behind him, and we're both playing on different strings. It's fun.

C: Any plans to record or tour with him in the near future?
T: Well, we've recorded a lot of the touring that we've done… By the way, just to go back and answer that question, he did these Flecktones shows, one in Boston, and one at the Beacon Theatre in New York, and had me come out for one song for THAT. But the last real official thing we did in MY memory was two years ago, almost exactly two years ago, when we were just doing our show.
C: Well, you're overdue for another, huh?
T: I'd be happy to do another one, and we've talked about it.

C: My last question: Since the teacher almost always learns from the student, what did you come away with from your years picking with Béla?
T: Let me see… I've definitely learned a lot from him. One thing I noticed when playing with him was when we first did our duet tour together, that I was tending to overpower him a little bit, because I'd hit harder than he did. Not that he was weak or anything; I just tended to play a little harder. And we discussed it, and I thought I would just lay back a little bit, so that I wouldn't be quite as heavy hitting. From doing that – I mean, I still will play harder than he does, probably, overall, but that definitely influenced me to try other contexts. It feels like it does help your ideas flow a little more, and it helps your time out… on a lot of levels, it's a good thing to do. And then there's just various licks and techniques that I've picked up from him, that he's come up with. So it's definitely been a reciprocal trade agreement. I've definitely been inspired by him. You know, I've got three favorite banjo players: Bobby Thompson, Earl Scruggs, and Béla Fleck.

C: Excellent, excellent. I don't think I have anything else… well, no, I have just ONE more. Can you think of a bluegrass musician, not necessarily a banjo player, with the same fearlessness and skill on his or her instrument that Béla has?
T: Ummmm… just relating to banjo or to any instrument?
C: Any instrument.
T: I can only think of banjo. Scott Vestal is pretty much that way. I remember when he was playing with Doyle Lawson we hung out at this festival, and we went back to his room afterwards and I only knew that he played Doyle's music – pretty straight ahead stuff – and he started playing these Béla tunes, really progressive things, and I was like, 'WHOA! Does Doyle know you play that?' 'I'm not sure!' So that was a real eye-opener. And of course Alison Brown is another one who can play real straight-ahead bluegrass or, you know, take it way out there. Chris Thile, of course. And… who's the world's greatest fiddler? [we both struggle for the name, heavily under the influence of flu drugs… Glen Duncan… Glenn Lawson… Nashville Bluegrass Band…] But anyway, him.
C: Also, I think Missy Raines as a bass player is doing some adventurous things, and Mark Schatz – I love these fearless, adventurous virtuosos… and your Psychograss stuff I adore… I love your cover of that Hendrix tune. That's one of my very favorite things in the world; it sounds like a saw. It reminds me of the soundtrack from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – very ethereal.
T: Well, thanks… that was fun… Stuart Duncan, by the way.
C: Stuart Duncan! There we go!
T: I think Glen Duncan played with Bill Monroe for a while, and I think Monroe thought he was getting Stuart Duncan. I didn't hear the whole story, but he certainly ended up with a great fiddler anyway.
C: Well, thanks, Tony… I'm gonna pick up the phone…
T: One last thing that you might want to mention about Béla… he's a really good guy, you know, aside from his great business sense and great musicianship, he really cares about people… cares about his audience and his friends. That's my perception of him. He really tries to do the right thing. He always goes out after the show to the front of the stage to meet some people for as long as they want to hang out, unless he has to get to another gig or something. Every time I've ever seen him, he's done that. And he told me once that it wouldn't be worth it if he couldn't do that. He said that's what makes it all worthwhile. And he told ME that, so it's not just the party line. He really feels that way.

C: I'm gonna ask you one more, because you, of all people, would have an opinion about this: what do you think about musical xenophobes who don't listen to Béla Fleck, even Béla Fleck's bluegrass recordings, because they're offended by the experimental stuff he's done with other genres?
T: I don't know. [a little wearily] It's been going on for as long as there's been bluegrass, I guess. They're entitled to their tastes. I got that all the time when I was putting out my early records. People didn't like that I had saxophones or electric guitars, and that I didn't play just like Earl, or whatever. If Béla's getting the same thing, then it's… people want to hear what they're comfortable with, which is what most people want to hear. That's why Britney Spears and N Sync and the Backstreet Boys are so big.
C: Oh, gawd.
T: It's very comfortable to listen to – ear candy, ya know?
C: I tell my daughters all the time – you really need to listen to something else. It's the difference between eating hot dogs all the time, and having a good steak once in a while. You have to broaden your horizons!
T: I've got two kids, and we've definitely got the Backstreet Boys going on in this house. But my son also likes my band, and he also likes the Flecktones – he's seen them a couple times – trying to expand his horizons. And I'm not trying to say that people who are into traditional bluegrass are… I'm not saying that's like being into the Backstreet Boys, not trying to compare Bill Monroe to the Backstreet Boys… It's just, you know, not everyone has that experimental attitude, or wants to hear it.
C: Great! I'm gonna pick up the phone now… [tape ends]