Victor Wooten (Photo: Steve Parke).
Victor Wooten has an air of serenity that comes across even a Zoom screen. From the thoughtful way he formulates responses to his alert body language, it’s clear how much the bass virtuoso values communication – both in the way that he talks, and the music he writes.
Wooten is all about expanding what the bass can “say.” He can comfortably craft groovy lines for the instrument’s traditional role, and just as easily pen complex, innovative songs showing off its solo, melodic capabilities. It’s an approach that has attracted many of the world’s best musicians to him: from Keb’ Mo’ to Tommy Emmanuel, Mike Stern, and long-time writing partner Béla Fleck. And that’s on top of the Wooten Brothers — a band made up of Victor and his talented siblings that has been performing for the last 55+ years!
The 5-time Grammy Award winner never foresaw writing for a classical orchestra. Then again, he never would have predicted writing a book about his musical philosophy. Or running a camp combining music and nature classes. But when opportunities present themselves, Wooten chooses to go wherever the flow takes him.
Victor Wooten and his brothers were recently in town for a rare performance together on the Ravinia stage. Prior to the concert, we sat down with the multi-faceted musician to talk about his concerto for electric bass, titled La Lección Tres, including insights into the book and song that preceded the piece.
WFMT: You don’t often see a large amp sitting center stage next to an orchestra! What inspired you to write a concerto for the electric bass?
Victor: Well you see… to me, it’s all just music. It’s less about how our instruments sound, and more about what we try to say with them.
Now, some instruments are better designed to take on certain roles than others. My instrument (the bass) is designed to be the bottom of the music — the floor of the building. And you rarely walk into a building and compliment the floor, right? We only recognize the floor when it’s not doing its job.
But the floor can also be beautiful. It can be a mosaic pattern. It could be even more beautiful, depending on who’s judging, than the ceiling.
The longer a musician plays an instrument, the more a musician wants to go beyond the “role” of that instrument. And that’s where you find me. I love my role and I think I understand it completely. But I know that as a musician, I’m more than just a role. And this bass concerto was just another way to explore that.
WFMT: Talk to us a little bit about the song “The Lesson.” Why use it as the basis for a concerto, and how does this work mark its third iteration?
Wooten: Well, the song “The Lesson” was written in conjunction with a book that I wrote called The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search For Growth Through Music. That book has kind of taken on a life of its own now. It’s been translated into five or six different languages; universities and colleges have been using it in their courses… I’m not saying that to toot my own horn, but to say how surprised I am!
Anyways in that book, at the beginning of each chapter, there’s literally a handwritten measure of music. Just one measure. But if you put all the measures together, you get the song. The lesson.
That book and the record with “The Lesson” on it came out on the same day in 2008. It was a solo bass song – just me on a bass, playing melodies, chords and rhythm at the same time. It was challenging to play, but I loved it. The audience loved it. So I’ve always wanted to do more with it.
When it came time to do an audio version of the written book, I scored it with music already in the book. The melody from “The Lesson” is whispered throughout the whole story. Then at the end of the book, percussion comes in and you hear a bigger version of the song, with Béla Fleck on banjo, Howard Levy on harmonica, and my brother Roy “Future Man” Wooten playing percussion. In my mind, that was the second version of “The Lesson.”
And when I was asked to write this concerto… I figured I would give myself an advantage by starting with something familiar. Something I loved. That’s why this concerto is The Lesson III.
WFMT: As someone who comes from a very improvisational background, talk to us a little bit about your writing process. Do you normally write down ideas? How was it different for this concerto?
Wooten: My world of music is exactly the same as what we’re doing right now: improvising. It’s like jazz at a high level. In other words, we have questions, we have ideas, but I’m sure you’re not saying them exactly as written. And if I say, “Repeat that question, if you don’t mind Adela” — it’s gonna be the same question, but you’re gonna say it differently.
This is the level musicians are trying to get to on their instrument. Some musicians can actually do it as free as talking. They can just state something, and people get it. That’s the musical world of improv.
But for this, I had to come out of that world and write something… so that the conductors know what I’m supposed to play. Normally, I just vaguely learn my songs and then I get to play them however I want. That was a challenge: to write something that I can remember and I know I’m gonna play for 23 minutes.
Now as you know, this piece is based off of a song of mine called “The Lesson.” But that was the only thing I knew going into writing this piece. The second movement of this concerto is at some parts, verbatim, that song. That’s where I started: with the middle, using the piece I was most familiar with. Then I went back and tried to expand the melody.
I used MIDI instruments. I didn’t do it the authentic, older way where you get onto a piano and start writing with a pencil and paper. I’d still be writing four years later if I had to do it like that!
Now with technology, the process is easier to hear right away.
And sometimes I get lucky. If I just start, then the ideas flow.
Victor Wooten (Photo: Steve Parke).
WFMT: What was most challenging about the process?
Wooten: I guess I don’t really think of it so much in terms of difficulty… It was all just getting the work done.
Maybe the most difficult part was figuring out a way to achieve my goal. I knew the electric bass would be different for — and I hope I’m not being rude — the typical classical audience. I wanted to stretch both sides: my fans and the “not fans” of the electric bass.
So I wrote parts into the symphony where I’m just being a bass player, supporting the violin or the oboe or whatever. But then! There are times in this piece where I’m doing more: playing in unison with the violin, with the oboe, with the cellist. There are also times where I’m playing chords, or playing harmonics with the harp in the same register.
I wanted to stretch minds, but also give people something familiar in one piece. That might have been the most difficult part.
WFMT: In the midst of all these iterations, what is the main message you want people to get from “The Lesson”?
Wooten: At the risk of sounding weird … I think that if we really listen to music when we play, music speaks to you. Much in the same way that, if I listen to you, I know what to say next.
One of the big things in the book I wrote is that music is a reality. Music is someone you can talk to, someone that is trying to talk to you. And even many of us musicians don’t listen. Where do these ideas in music come from? Maybe that’s music whispering, talking to us. Maybe when I make a mistake, it’s music pushing me in the way that she wants me to go.
There are many, many lessons in the story. And the book, at least, is not for everyone. But I will say this: music brings people together the way nothing else does. It makes us forget what society says is important. The people you vote for; the color of your skin. Who do you pray to? How much money do you make? All that disappears as soon as the music starts.
What we do with our instruments, it’s a superpower. Like in our country when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. President Johnson, he didn’t call the CIA. He called James Brown to stop a riot in Boston. James Brown did it with music. Because if you say it with music surrounding it, music adds power to whatever you say.
Victor Wooten on a Zoom call with WFMT.
That’s why preachers use it. Politicians use it. We use it. It centers us; it gives us a sense of who we are. Music is powerful. But like Stan Lee and Spider-Man said, “With power comes responsibility.” It’s so easy to have kids singing things they shouldn’t be singing.
I want to be responsible with the music that I do. And I thank my parents for bringing us to that mentality as young people. And I’m thankful to people like you, the fans, the listeners, for giving me the chance to have a worldwide platform. Because you’ve given me that platform, I want to do justice, and hopefully say some good things that you’d be proud to repeat.
Catch the broadcast premiere of Victor Wooten’s “La Lección Tres” on WFMT’s Orchestra Series, August 19 at 8:00 pm CT. For more information about Victor Wooten’s musical and spiritual endeavors, visit victorwooten.com. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
