A lot of folks believe Victor Wooten is the baddest bass player on the planet right now and I certainly wouldn’t argue with them.
Sonny T., known for his low-end work with Prince’s New Power Generation and more recently Cory Wong, seemed to suggest as much last night as he introduced Wooten and his brothers who showed up unannounced at Bunker’s Music Bar & Grill in Minneapolis’ North Loop.
I’ll come back to that amazing late night snack a lucky few were able to partake in because, for me, Wooten’s shining moment of the night (I’ll note I did not catch the early set at the Dakota Jazz Club) was hearing him talk about his four brothers.
The respect and brotherly love he has for them was palpable and genuine.
Photo courtesy of Wooten Brothers
The funk and R&B that the Wooten brothers play, and have always played together, is full of love, first and foremost.
Wooten used the the intimacy of the Dakota, a place he’s played many times, to do a some storytelling.
You knew he geniunely cherished playing with his brothers, and he took the audience back to some of his earliest memories.
“We call him ’The Teacha,’” Victor Wooten, 58, said of the oldest Wooten brother, Regi. “He taught me how to play. He was only 10, and I was 2."
Regi Wooten's dynamic guitar style has drawn “comparisons to Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and Chuck Berry,” according to the quartet’s press packet.
You could tell how proud Victor Wooten, definitely the brightest star among them, was of his big brothers.
“My brothers, y’all,” he said. “They're big brothers."
Regi Wooten taught his brother how to play bass when he was 10 years old.
He didn’t leave out their late brother Rudy, who played saxophone.
“Rudy was the horn section,” Victor Wooten narrated, telling the tale of the five Wooten brothers and their early playing years. “Rudy is not here physically, but we know he’s here with us in the room.”
He mentioned Rudy’s Jazz Room in Nashville.
He talked about his brother Joseph, aka “The Hands of Soul,” who has played the keys for three decades for Steve Miller Band.
And of course there was Roy “Future Man” Wooten, a drummer who, along with Victor, have been key members of five-time Grammy-winning Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.
Story time didn’t end there. Victor Wooten told the tale of the brothers recently getting an early demo tape back in their possession.
When he heard of its existence, he recalled thinking, “I gotta be nice to this guy.”
It turns out the man needed money for his wife’s medical bills.
“I said how much are you going to ask?” he said. “We paid him a whole lot more than what he was asking. What we got back was a treasure trove. I was in the fifth grade and 12. Regi was in the first week of college.”
There was some talk, as the brothers mingled with fans after the show, of remastering the tape. The Wooten Brothers have a number of shows planned in Seattle, Oakland, Calif., Anaheim, Calif., Solana Beach, Calif., and a bunch of shows in Australia through June 1. Find tour and ticket information here.
And the Wooten brothers weren’t done for the night.
A group of friends all headed over to Bunkers because word was that’s where they were all headed. In fact, a friend gave Victor and one of his brothers a ride over there.
A few of my friends didn’t make it because of early work responsibilities, and others almost didn’t make it for various reasons.
Nobody over at Bunker’s seemed to know who was headed their way, and the International Reggae All-Stars, late into their regular Tuesday night gig at Bunkers, were killing in their own right. But they were gracious and were genuinely glad to hand over the stage to the Wooten Brothers.
The specialness of the moment certainly wasn’t lost on them.
Sonny T. — whose arrived with the brothers, appeared to handle the personnel transition and announced the Wootens — as well as a few lucky folks that appeared to have gotten word from friends — had now bulooned the Bunkers crowd.
They got the stage for about 20 to 30 minutes and unsuprisingly went directly to the funk, including covers of Prince (“Kiss”), Outcast (“Roses”) as well as a super-funked version of The Weeknd's, “Can’t Feel My Face.”
And then, just like that, the Wootens left the stage, and the International Reggae All-Stars closed out the night with a few more reggae classics.