Trio!

Trio! was a one-time acoustic jazz fusion supergroup during 2005. It consisted of bassist Stanley Clarke (from Return to Forever), jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty (from The Mothers of Invention, Mahavishnu Orchestra), and banjoist Béla Fleck (whose band was on a one-year hiatus).

Much of the material performed by Trio! was from The Rite of Strings, with Fleck on banjo instead of Al Di Meola on guitar.

History

Formed in mid-2005, Trio! toured the U.S. East Coast between May and October 2005, as well as playing dates in Canada, Spain, Switzerland, and The Netherlands. They performed at numerous jazz festivals, including the Newport Jazz Festival, Montreux Jazz Festival, the JVC Festival in Los Angeles, the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival in Burlington, VT, and the Syracuse Jazz Festival in Syracuse, NY (where the date of their performance was officially proclaimed "Bela Fleck, Stanley Clarke, and Jean-Luc Ponty Day" by the Mayor). This supergroup being a side project for all three members, and as Fleck went back on tour with the Flecktones to promote their album The Hidden Land, the group disbanded.