Banjoist Béla Fleck and bassist Edgar Meyer both have countless colleagues who would sell body parts and firstborn for the opportunity to work with them. And yet, when the longtime collaborators were commissioned to compose a triple concerto for banjo and bass plus one -- and given free rein to pick the third musician -- one name topped both their lists: Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain.

``The banjo and tabla have had an appointment to get together, and I'm glad to be experiencing it coming true,'' Fleck said from Portland, Ore., a stop on the U.S. tour that brings the trio to Miami's Gusman Theater on Sunday.

``They're a natural fit. They both roll fast patterns, and I can learn so much from [Hussain]. I think he's going to invigorate my playing.''

The recording of their project, The Melody of Rhythm, commissioned by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, topped the Billboard Classical Albums chart. It serves as joyful testament to the wisdom of selecting the tabla virtuoso, whose resume includes stints with Ravi Shankar, George Harrison, John McLaughlin and the Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart.

``Zakir has made a lifetime reach toward the West while being at the pinnacle of Indian music,'' Meyer says. ``So if we never learned a note of what he's doing, he'll come all the way to us if that's what's needed. I mean, we don't want that. We want to learn as much as we can from him, but he does make it easy.''

Comprising trio performances of selections written individually and collectively, as well as the tri-part concerto with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Slatkin, The Melody of Rhythm is a seamless blend of cultures, styles and sensibilities.

Fleck's quicksilver picking wends throughout the aural tapestry, offset by Meyer's sonorous, bowed bass and Hussain's physics-defying percussive attack. No one style or instrument dominates, as bluegrass, classical and Indian forms engage in spirited conversation.

``Balance was the goal,'' Fleck says. ``Nobody was supposed to stick out, and nobody was supposed to disappear. And we were all supposed to be changed. A good collaboration is not one where you just do what you always do but one where you change what you do to fit the other people. We're all listening to each other and altering and blending towards each other. Yet all the influences come through; they don't disappear.''

Meyer echoes these sentiments.

``The banjo and the bass are fairly funky instruments,'' he says in a thoughtful Southern drawl. ``They both have their rough and kinda folky sound to them, which, interestingly, is what I think defines the sound of the three of us playing together.''

Stylistically and geographically, Fleck, 51, has taken the banjo places he could only have dreamed of as a teenage picker copping licks from Flatt and Scruggs' Beverly Hillbillies theme and Weissberg and Mandell's Dueling Banjos. Playing in groups including New Grass Revival, he cemented his reputation as the guy to beat on the banjo. His band the Flecktones, formed in 1990 and set to tour later this year, brought him even wider acclaim with its distinctive fusion of bluegrass, funk and jazz.

But settling into a comfortable niche is not in the New York native's nature. In 2005, Fleck traveled to Tanzania, Mali, Gambia and Uganda, tracing the roots of the banjo to its African origins and collaborating with indigenous musicians, a journey that yielded the CD and documentary Throw Down Your Heart. Last year, he teamed up with jazz pianist Chick Corea for an album of duets, The Enchantment.

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