Bluegrass-jazz-funk innovators Bela Fleck And The Flecktones have announced that their debut album for Columbia Records can be expected to come out this August.

Leaving his former label, Warner Bros., after over ten years, Grammy nominated banjo master Bela Fleck has now signed simultaneously to both Columbia Records and Sony Classical, agreeing to record five albums between the two labels, including The Flecktones ' August release, two solo classical albums, and one solo jazz album.

According to a February 19 article in "Billboard" magazine, Fleck was attracted to Sony partly because of the number of executive friends and contacts he already had from past work, including Columbia creative consultant/jazz sax legend Branford Marsalis and Columbia VP of jazz Jeff Levenson, formerly of Warner Bros.

Fleck has almost two dozen records, both with The Flecktones and solo, to his credit, and he has guested on countless albums for other musicians, including Shawn Colvin,

Dave Matthews, Phish, Loretta Lynn, and Bruce Hornsby, who returned the favor by playing on Fleck's Warner Bros. release "Tales From An Acoustic Planet.

Bela Fleck And The Flecktones are currently on tour, and you can check them out at a venue near you:

• 3/9- Binghamton, NY @ The Forum
• 310- Easton, PA @ State Theater
• 3/11- Reading, PA @ Scottish Rite Cathedral
• 3/14- York, PA @ Strand Theater
• 3/15- West Dover, VT @ Snowbarn
• 3/16- Buffalo, NY @ SUNY
• 3/17- New Haven, CT @ The Palace Theater (w/ The John Scofield Band)
• 3/18- Atlantic City, NJ @ Trump Marina
• 3/19- Baltimore, MD @ ohns Hopkins Univ
• 4/7- Austin, TX @ Old Settler's Music Fest At Stone Mt.
• 4/9- Myrtle Beach, SC @ House Of Blues
• 4/10- Winston Salem, NC @ Wait Chapel Wake Forest Univ.
• 4/11- Charlottesville, VA @ PAC
• 4/12- Morristown, NJ @ Community Theatre
• 4/13- Concord, NH @ Capitol Center For The Arts
• 4/14- New York, NY

@ Beacon Theater