The Flecktones formed in 1988 when Béla Fleck was invited to perform on the PBS TV series The Lonesome Pine Specials.

Near the end of his time with the New Grass Revival band, Fleck was invited to play for the Lonesome Pine Special on PBS in 1988,[1] and he gathered a group of musicians to assist him.

The Flecktones merged bluegrass with jazz, presenting record store owners with the problem of selecting a genre under which to stock their whimsically titled albums, whose covers bore cartoons.

The leader played electric banjo and was influenced by the Kentucky bluegrass of Earl Scruggs and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett".

Roy Wooten called himself "Future Man" and played drumitar, an instrument which he'd developed by linking a customised SynthAxe guitar synthesizer controller to drum sounds.

The band performed initially at jazz festivals, as well as with soul singer Stevie Wonder, blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt, and the Christian a cappella group Take 6.

[3] The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year.

1996 saw the release of the live album Live Art, featuring recordings made over a four-year touring period which also saw the core Flecktones trio (plus, on some tunes, Levy) collaborating with assorted jazz and bluegrass musicians including Sam Bush, Branford Marsalis, Chick Corea, and Bruce Hornsby.

It represented a switch from previous Flecktones albums, as the band, according to critic Terri Horak, "jettisoned their self-imposed rule to only record what could be duplicated on live instruments.

Original member Howard Levy rejoined the following year in 2011, when the band recorded and released their eleventh album Rocket Science.

[14] Of the album Béla Fleck and the Flecktones critic Geoffrey Himes wrote, "Fleck's banjo-playing takes the quartet on wide tangents through the outer space of jazz improvisation and minimalist composition, but he always brings them back to the traditions of rural America.

However, he was critical of the band's lack of a drum kit, claiming that Wooten's "electronic beat seemed a bit muddy compared to the real thing".

Joyce called a Flecktones show a "musical free-for-all, embracing the band's recorded material and venturing off into the great unknown.

"[19] Jim Santella of The Buffalo News praised the band's mastery of styles and their ability to weave together complicated pieces.

Geoffrey Himes praised the band for being able to package the Flecktones' complex sound into an easily digestible holiday album without having to compromise.