Little Worlds

Little Worlds
Studio album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones
Released	August 12, 2003
Genre	Jazz, jazz fusion
Length	153:32
Label	Columbia
Producer	Béla Fleck
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones chronology
Live at the Quick (2002) Little Worlds (2003) The Hidden Land (2006)

Little Worlds is the tenth album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, released in 2003. The album was released as a 3-disc set. Ten tracks from the set were also released on a single disc called Ten from Little Worlds.

The album contains several tracks that are hidden at the beginning and end of Disc One and at the end of Disc Three. These hidden tracks present a short and humorous story of two men, voiced by Yankees outfielder Bernie Williams and Michael McKean (as David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap), stuck in traffic and flipping through different radio stations. The songs they hear are songs from the album played in different styles and on different instruments. For example, the slow and soothing song "Poindexter" is featured but redone as a heavy metal song with each band member playing an instrument different from their ordinary one. The redone version is also complete with rhythmic screaming to which one of the men listening in the car makes the comment "I don't even know what they are saying."

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
All About Jazz
Allmusic

In his Allmusic review, music critic Zac Johnson wrote the "three-CD concept album has ambitious intentions, but ultimately ends up feeling a bit scattered... Still, every note is impeccably played and pristinely recorded, and those Flecktones fans who like to pull apart their extremely technical pieces of music, analyze them, and put them back together will find hours of rabid discussion on Little Worlds."

Doug Collette, writing for All About Jazz praised the album's packaging, sound quality and conception; "Lest you think Little Worlds is an exercise in esoteric self-indulgence, pay attention to the way the album flows over the course of the three discs. While much of the early going insinuates itself gently through the recurring use of Celtic melodic themes, there’s a distinct if understated increase in the intensity of the music between the first disc and the second. The appearance of guitarist Derek Trucks... on “Pineapple Heart” ratchets up the visceral momentum of the music another level altogether, while “The Last Jam” brings this entire affair to an emphatic climax."

Critic Thom Jurek called the album an "outrageous exercise in self-indulgence... so excessive that Sony issued a single-disc sampler from the set hoping it would sell."

Track listing

Disc one

"Bil Mon" is preceded by a hidden track.

1. "Bil Mon" – 8:42
2. "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" (with Bobby McFerrin and Sam Bush) – 4:06
3. "Puffy" – 6:45
4. "New Math" – 6:59
5. "Longitude" – 3:04
6. "Latitude" – 5:04
7. "Centrifuge" (with Derek Trucks) – 2:05
8. "Off the Top (The Gravity Wheel)" (with Nickel Creek) – 4:54
9. "Off the Top (Line Dance)" (with Nickel Creek) – 4:55
10. "Hidden Track/Follow the Line" – 0:48

Disc two

1. "The Fjords of Oslo" – 0:41
2. "Sherpa" – 5:20
3. "What It Is" (with Bobby McFerrin)– 3:41
4. "The Leaning Tower" (with Bobby McFerrin/The Chieftains) – 6:06
5. "Mudslingers of the Milky Way" – 6:14
6. "Captive Delusions" (with Branford Marsalis) – 3:54
7. "Costa Brava" – 8:23
8. "Poindexter" (with Jerry Douglas) – 5:38
9. "Prequel" – 3:14
10. "Return of the Mudslingers" (with Branford Marsalis) – 2:50

Disc three

1. "The Cave" – 1:35
2. "Next" – 5:56
3. "Pineapple Heart" (with Derek Trucks/Sam Bush) – 5:06
4. "Snatchin'" – 4:47
5. "Reminiscence" – 5:33
6. "Sleeper" (with Bobby McFerrin) – 12:16
7. "Flunky" – 0:39
8. "The Last Jam" (with Derek Trucks/Jerry Douglas/Bernie Williams) – 14:26
9. Untitled Hidden Track – 1:11

Personnel

The Flecktones

• Béla Fleck - banjo, synthesizer banjo, electric banjo, synthesizer, vocals
• Jeff Coffin - clarinet, bass clarinet, flute (alto), alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, didgeridoo, finger cymbals, whistling, musical whistle
• Future Man - synth-axe drumitar, acoustic percussion
• Victor Wooten - electric bass, acoustic bass, upright bass, 6-string bass, cello, keyboards

Guest artists

• Derek Bell - Irish harp
• Paul Brantley - cello
• Sandip Burman - tabla
• Sam Bush - mandolin
• Subasch Chandram - vocals, jaw harp, gatam
• Kevin Conneff - vocals, bodhran
• Jerry Douglas - dobro, lap steel guitar
• Divinity - vocals
• Feng Xiu Hong - vocals
• Sean Keane - fiddle
• Ganesh Kumar - kanjira
• Pamelia Kurstin - theremin
• Matt Malloy - flute
• Branford Marsalis - soprano saxophone
• Bobby McFerrin - vocals
• Matt Molloy - flute
• Paddy Moloney - Uillean pipes
• Cyrus Niccore - didjeridoo
• Congar Ol Ondar - Tuvan throat singing
• Jake Shimabukuro - ukulele
• Chris Thile - mandolin
• Derek Trucks - electric guitar
• Sara Watkins - fiddle
• Sean Watkins - guitar
• Bernie Williams - guitar
• Joe Wooten - theremin

Ten from Little Worlds

Ten from Little Worlds
Studio album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones
Released	August 12, 2003
Genre	Jazz
Length	52:59
Label	Columbia
Producer	Béla Fleck
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones chronology
Live at the Quick (2002) Little Worlds (2003) The Hidden Land (2006)

At the request of their record label, the Flecktones released a regular length album simultaneously with the three-disc set. The shorter version, entitled Ten from Little Worlds, contains highlights from the full album, and is only one disc long.

Reception

In his Allmusic review, music critic Zac Johnson wrote "While the full work seems a little disjointed and too expansive, the ten-song collection is a little more digestible... the unfortunate hip-hop version of Flatt & Scruggs' "Ballad of Jed Clampett" never needed to be recorded."

1. "Bil Mon"
2. "Ballad of Jed Clampett"
3. "Pineapple Heart"
4. "Snatchin'"
5. "Next"
6. "The Leaning Tower"
7. "Puffy"
8. "Sherpa"
9. "Off the Top (The Gravity Wheel)"
10. "Off the Top (Line Dance)"