Skip to main content

Victor Wooten Trio 10.1.17


Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley
Seattle, WA

Words & Photos by Erica Garvey


“We all have dreams. One day I’m going to be an adult.” – Victor Wooten

The overwhelming impression emanating from the first few notes of the Victor Wooten Trio’s performance was the sparse band’s mighty sound. Not sparse in the sense of talent, but a trio of bass, drums, and saxophone is not the most common instrumentation used to bring down the house. Performing six consecutive shows at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley in Seattle, the Victor Wooten Trio brought together Dennis Chambers on drums, Bob Franceschini on saxophone, and the one and only Victor Wooten on bass.

I attended the final performance of the group’s Jazz Alley run on Sunday, October 1, 2017. The evening’s performance was characterized by effortless transitions from full-throttled energetic bass/sax duets to slow Miles Davis-esque jams, with many a creative drum solo thrown in. The collection of drums and five cymbals was large enough to keep one-and-a-half drummers busy, but Chambers’ drumming style is the opposite of frantic. Naturally, Wooten had his own library of instruments on stage, including a beautiful fretless bass that evoked a penetratingly sad feel when Wooten deployed a bow toward the end of the performance.

Songs included “Liz & Opie,” “A Little Rice and Beans,” a sort of mash-up of “My Life” and “Quimbara,” “Zenergy” (which started out sounding like massage music, but evolved into classic Flecktone territory with some actual “Brick House” mixed in!), “Dc10” (which had a time signature of 10/4, and a “Flight of the Bumblebees”-style bass part so complicated that utilizing a loop pedal was the only way its composer could keep it going for a full song), and an encore showcasing “The Lesson.”

I am always fascinated watching bass players hold down the bottom rungs of a song while filling in riffs and solos normally reserved for guitar players. To my amateur ears, half of the songs felt unstructured. But it was obvious that I was surrounded by unapologetic music nerds and super fans who certainly “got it.” Even if some moments were above the average patron’s understanding, it is difficult to resist the charms of Wooten’s cheeseball smile and his circus-act maneuvers in which he flips his bass around his midsection and shoulders so fast I literally did not know what was happening.

Please keep having fun, Victor, and never grow into an adult.

www.victorwooten.com

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Livetronica Sampler 3.22.11

Words by Greg Molitor ( ReMIND Photography ) Ozric Tentacles This British group has proven innovative throughout the years offering a space-rock meets psytrance sound that remains alive to this day. Though never having a major record label, Ozric Tentacles has produced 28 albums of diverse psychedelia throughout its career. The band met at the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1983 and truly fathered livetronica music with its use of sequencers and synthesizers. Simply put, there would be no livetronica without Ozric Tentacles. www.ozrics.com Octopus Nebula Colorado’s Octopus Nebula has certainly hit its stride as of late with its constant touring and increased festival interest. The group expands on the deep sounds of highly regarded acts such as STS9 and Shpongle but also carves a path of its own with its fresh takes on synthesizer tones and sampling in the live setting. Octopus Nebula Live at Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom on March 26, 2010. <--- Direct Archive Link www.octopus

Buckethead: Gimmick or Guitar God?

Words & Photos By Nicholas Stock ( phatphlogblog.blogspot.com ) At what point does the gimmick overshadow the performance? The obvious answer is Buckethead. The man is an amazing guitarist but something is not right in this world. The idea a performer who dons a KFC chicken bucket on his head for a concert has always intrigued me, and some of his side projects such as Colonel Claypool’s Bernie Bucket of Brains have been huge successes. However his performance last weekend in Fort Collins simply left me perplexed. From his robotic dancing, to his nunchuck display, to the fact the he performed with an iPod rather than a band all added to my confusion. Going into the show I was ready to be blown away, despite rumblings of disgruntled fans from the previous night’s show at The Gothic. Buckethead had had some sound issues and some missed cues in Denver but I was still trying to be positive for the show in Fort Collins. It did go off without a hitch technically but that was the least

The Origin of MusicMarauders

Words By J-man "What should I name this fucking thing?" I asked myself in the midst of a joint in my Upstate, NY apartment. "It's got to be something with just 'Music'in the title. Nothing more specific than that, as we'll be covering a wide variety of genres." One more drag on the joint yielded the memory of driving down Woodward Ave. in Detroit, listening to Tribe Called Quest's Midnight Marauders. "MusicMarauders! That's it... It completely encompasses what we do in the sense the we are 'maraudering' or 'pillaging' for music," I thought as I stared out of the window at about three and a half feet of fresh Upstate snow. First things first, the domain had to be registered. "Do I have ten dollars in my account?" I thought to myself from a position of just scraping by. Pulling out my shiny, rarely used debit card, I put it to the test and was able to secure MusicMarauders.com. "What's next?" I