No less a music authority than Isaac Hayes has pronounced The Enchantment, the collaboration between Chick Corea and B la Fleck, a work of genius. If it seems odd for soul legend Hayes to be weighing in on a hybrid jazz project, how much more improbable is it that one of the great keyboard players of contemporary jazz is recording and touring with a virtuoso banjo player? As it turns out, not very.

Both Corea and Fleck have a history of working with a wide variety of musicians, constantly expanding the parameters of their oeuvre. Along with virtually every major name in jazz over the past 40 years, Corea has played and recorded with flamenco and classical ensembles.

Fleck, who completely redefined the possibilities of the banjo after launching his band the Flecktones in 1990, worked earlier this year on a recording with opera star Renee Fleming to give her that rootsy, old time sound that is so popular now in the opera world, Fleck writes on his Web site. His collaboration with Corea has its roots in an epiphany Fleck had when he was 17, after seeing Corea s seminal jazz fusion band, Return to Forever.

He was blown away, particularly when he realized that I could play all those notes on my banjo, too. That set the direction for much of his subsequent career. Corea contributed to the Flecktones 1995 CD Tales from the Acoustic Planet, but it wasn t until late in 2006 that the two got together for a dedicated project.