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Although Victor Wooten’s brilliance on the bass
may seem beyond the capability of all but a gifted few, he portrays the instrument as a simple tool anyone can learn. "It doesn't take much technique to play a bass guitar," he insists. "Pluck a string, press a finger down, that’s it."So why is the playing of some technically adept bassists excitement-free while the sounds made by others are truly inspirational? “Good musicianship skills,” he replies. “And in my mind, that’s what’s not being taught.”
Wooten hopes to close this gap in both word and deed. The Music Lesson, his new novel, uses music instruction as an allegory that can be applied to all areas of life, while Palmystery, his latest solo CD, finds him exploring an entire universe of music with his usual fervor and curiosity. The disc “may be more jazzy on a whole than my previous records, because there’s less vocals and more jazz-fusion elements. But I don’t consider my records to be just jazz records,” he concedes. “Music is broad. The more chances I get to play different styles, the more I grow.”
The disc’s most unusual track is “I Saw God,” a story song with a Caribbean lilt in which Wooten tells of encountering a female deity who speaks in loving aphorisms about spiritual beliefs and mankind’s interconnectedness. “It’s overwhelming, the response I’ve been getting,” he says. Chick Corea, with whom he recently toured, is a big fan of the number — “he said it’s like all the religions coming together in one song,” Wooten notes — as is author James Twyman, who asked Wooten to perform it in the film based on his book The Moses Code.
“Left, Right & Center” also confounds expectations. Wooten conceived it as a platform for three drummers: J.D. Blair, Dennis Chambers, and Will Kennedy. But instead of turning into a solid wall of percussion, the tune leaves plenty of room for a passage that finds Wooten working in tandem with guitarist Mike Stern. “I double Mike’s solo,” he says. “It sounds like either a bass with an octave higher attached to it or a guitar with an octave lower — but it’s really the two of us, playing in unison.”
“Us 2,” which concludes the album, features a subtler variation on this approach, with Wooten pairing gentle slide-bass tones with the slide guitar of Keb’ Mo’. “Everything about that song is simplicity. That’s a song you have to get quiet to listen to, and I love stuff like that,” he points out. “It’s very different from what people expect from me.”
So is The Music Lesson, which Berkley Trade, a Penguin imprint, will publish in April. Wooten describes the novel as an outgrowth of the music-and-nature camps he’s run for the better part of a decade. “I knew people wanted an instruction book — something they could take with them — but that’s the book I didn’t want to write,” he admits.
Instead, he invented a scenario that revolves around a struggling student and an enigmatic teacher who never lets rules get in the way of learning. Wooten shares this philosophy. “We don’t give a kid an instrument and say, ‘Do what you want with that,’” he points out. “We say, ‘Here’s how you have to do it.’ So part of the kid is locked up right away. But if you give people their freedom, they’ll express it in their own way.”
Using this method, Wooten is confident he can teach anyone to play in record time, and he’d like to prove it with one of the planet’s most famous celebrities. “I told my publisher I could have Oprah Winfrey sounding like a professional musician live on TV,” he says. “The thing is, Oprah or you or anyone has been listening to music your whole life — so you already know everything you need to know. What you don’t know is how to play the instrument. And that’s the easy part.”
Victor Wooten Palmystery (Heads Up)
Bassist Victor Wooten has gained his greatest fame through his association with banjoist Béla Fleck, but he’s hardly satisfied with being a Flecktone. He’s played with artists ranging from Greg Howe to Branford Marsalis, Bruce Hornsby to Chick Corea, Dave Matthews to Prince, and the Jaco Pastorius Word Of Mouth Big Band. Those various influences and styles are reflected on Palmystery, Wooten’s sixth solo album.
It kicks off with the dazzling “2 Timers,” Wooten’s fingers flying and popping over the strings before a horn section echoes his sixteenth-note runs. Former Flecktone Howard Levy then takes a jaunty ride on harmonica. The following “Cambo” and “I Saw God” are among the tracks to include voices, sometimes as wordless harmony, other times singing (or speaking) actual words. But the focus is on bass intensity, and not just Wooten’s. He’s secure enough to invite a cadre of other bassists to join him, including Anthony Wellington, Alvin Cordy, Steve Bailey, John Billings, and even his brother Regi Wooten. He’s also surrounded himself with a number of other excellent players, such as drummers Dennis Chambers and Will Kennedy, guitarists Alvin Lee and Mike Stern, and numerous members of the Wooten family. Playing together in various permutations, the musicians create a consistently engaging and enjoyable ride through rock, gospel, fusion, and funk. The focus is often enough on Wooten’s army of basses, but whether it’s melodic soloing over a busy backing (as on “Sifu”) or the zesty farewell to a loved one (“Miss U,” complete with a sing-along chorus), the basses all serve the song.
— Ross Boissoneau
Also reviewed in this issue
Chick Corea & Gary BurtonBobby Few
Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin
Enrico Rava & Stefano Bollani
Charles Lloyd Quartet
Karrin Allyson
Tony Scherr
Caribbean Jazz Project
David "Fathead" Newman
Drew Gress
Otis Taylor
Eric Bibb
Lizz Wright
Adam Rudolph’s Moving Pictures
Spring Heel Jack
David Finck Quartet
Matt Savage