Victor's Home Cooking

Jun 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Mike Levine

BASSMAN VICTOR WOOTEN THRIVES IN HIS PERSONAL STUDIO

“Miss You” was another amazing song on Palmystery. I've never heard slide bass before. Did you just use a regular bottleneck slide?
Yeah, I bought a few different types — glass, there's one that's all black (I don't know what it's made of), and a metal one — just to see what sounded good, because I don't know how to use a slide. I just go for the sound. I don't know what the technique is.

And who was the engineer?
Mostly Robert Battaglia [see the sidebar “Victor's Secret Weapon”]. His brother Richard does sound for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Now Robert and Richard together record the Flecktones' records at Béla's studio. But Robert's also done a bunch of other stuff; he used to live in California. “Miss You” was another song with a different bass player. Basically, a couple of Januarys ago, the Flecktones did a cruise called the Jam Cruise. I heard a band on there called the Lee Boys [that was] kind of like a gospel band, a funky gospel band. And they have a guy in that band playing steel guitar, just rockin'.

Sort of like Robert Randolph's style?
Totally. Same type of thing. They're all friends. In listening to them, I just started getting ideas. And I always have a way of either writing something down or [using] a little recorder that I can talk into. And I got an idea for this song. And since they inspired the song “Miss You,” I had all of them come in and play on it. So it's their drummer, bass player, pedal steel player, guitar player, and two of their vocalists. Two of the uncles sing — they're all a family. I only played the melody. I brought my brother Joseph in to play keys, and then my female vocalist, Sandra Williams, added some vocals to it.

That's a great song. It could be a single.
Thank you. I think it could, too. But most people see me as a jazz musician, and it's hard to get out of that. It's hard to get the radio stations to play [my material]. But I'm okay with that. I'm doing the music that I enjoy.

Because you made your name being flashy — not in the bad sense, but by showing a dexterity on the bass that few people do — have you found that people don't think of you when they just want a grooving bass player?
People don't think of me that way at all. I did an interview yesterday for a gentleman who was saying that one of his favorite records was a record by an Irish artist named Paul Brady. And he heard this song and he loved it, and he wanted to know who the bass player was — and he found out it was me. But it was a record where Paul called me just to play bass. There were no solos, nothing fancy, no thumb work, and I got to play bass. So it was nice that someone actually heard that and liked it for that reason. So for anyone out there, I like to just play bass. I like not to have to solo. And it's funny, because that's how I grew up, playing R&B soul music. But when the Flecktones hit it big, I got really known as a soloist. And that's what helped me develop my soloing: playing in this jazz fusion band.

So tell me what it's like to play with Béla. Does he really push things to the edge?
Yes. It keeps us all on our toes musicianship-wise, writing-wise, knowing how to work in the studio. I've learned so much from being in that band. I've learned so much from Béla himself. Each member is at the top of his game. My brother, who they call Future Man, he's just walking creation — he's [very] creative.

He plays that unusual drum controller.
That electronic drum controller that he came up with. Now, there are other companies making similar things, all based on his idea. He's even got a piano version of the same thing; it's all electronic. And then we had a guy named Howard Levy, and he was the original fourth member of the Flecktones. He was a guy who could play a chromatic scale on a blues harp. He never used a chromatic harp, [but] everyone thought he did. He was a guy that invented a whole way of finding notes that don't exist.

So even if the song is modulating, he can keep up on the same harp?
It doesn't matter. He can play in all 12 keys on the same harp and sound like Charlie Parker. And he can also do it on the piano, in unison with the harmonica. And at the time, he could play any instrument. He doesn't anymore. He could pick up the bass and blow you away; he could play saxophone, Chinese instruments, tabla. But now he's gotten himself to stick to the harmonica and keys. Then there's Béla, and what he's done on the banjo. So you could imagine traveling the world with these guys, just sitting around listening to them talk. Me, I was the young guy, probably in my early twenties when I met Béla, so I was just soaking it all in. But at the same time, I grew up with four guys like that. All my brothers are strange like that.

Compare playing in the studio with playing live. Do you feel as though you can be more creative as a live player or as a recording musician?
Well, both. But [they're each] a different type of creation. I can afford to take my time in the studio. When I play live, it's fun to be spur of the moment. Like we're talking right now. We're just saying whatever comes to mind. We could write it out, and think it out, and possibly make it better, possibly not. But both phases of it are creative, and I like both phases. If I had to choose one, I'd choose live, because I love the interaction with people. Like if I had to live by myself or live with other people in the world, I would choose being around people. Both Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer, a great bassist, told me — and I'm going to try to paraphrase their words — that composing is like improvising in slow motion. You're still improvising, but the creative process is spanned out over time.

But in the studio, you can stop and go back and fix something.
You can stop and go back, yeah. And there are ways of doing that live. If I make a mistake, I can fix it. I can go back and make you think it's not a mistake.

It goes by so fast. A mistake live is gone in an instant. A mistake on a recording is there forever.
And then a mistake repeated becomes a part. And all of a sudden you're correcting it — what was a mistake is now okay. So there are ways of doing it, but they're different ways. I think it was Béla who said that a good improvisation will sound composed. Like when we listen to Charlie Parker or Trane, it sounds like they worked on it and wrote it out. But it's totally improvised. Good composition will sound like soloing. People might not know that Jaco Pastorius — one of my all-time favorite bass players — composed all the solos on his records. They were worked on, written out, constructed, but they sound improvised. Neither way is better; they're both legitimate. It doesn't knock Jaco because he composed them. But man, it's just amazing to be able to do both [composing and improvising], and I'm fortunate that I get that opportunity.

Do you often go in and edit your parts in Pro Tools and move this or that note around?
I will do some of that, but I do a lot less than many people. I'm an organic musician. I love the rawness, I love the mistakes. I could fix things and make it perfect, but it's more perfect when it's not — when it breathes. You rush a little here, you know that note wasn't clean, but it felt great. I like that. So I'm always listening to see what it sounds like and what it feels like. Because a note may not sound the best, but it has that feel. I try to meet in the middle, between how it feels and how it sounds.

(Editor's note: For more of this interview, in Podcast format, go to emusician.com/podcasts/elecmus_podcasts.)

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Mike Levine is EM's executive editor and senior media producer. He also hosts the twice-monthly Podcast “EM Cast” (emusician.com/podcasts).

VICTOR'S SECRET WEAPON

In addition to bass, Palmystery features guitar, live drums, horns, keyboards, lead and background vocals, and percussion. With so much to record, Wooten decided to bring in an engineer, Robert Battaglia (see Fig. A), to help him throughout the project. Battaglia, who has engineered for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (Battaglia's brother Richard is their front-of-house engineer and road manager), Edgar Meyer, Dar Williams, Little Feat, and Bobby Womack, among many others, spent years engineering in Los Angeles before moving to Nashville.

Robert was heavily involved with both the tracking and the mix phases of Palmystery. I asked him if he finds it advantageous to work with artists like Wooten, who understand recording techniques. “Generally speaking, it helps,” Battaglia says. “It would be pretty unusual if it didn't. They let you do what you're supposed to be doing, and they understand sometimes why you're doing something. And if they don't, they know you're doing it to try to get the project done.”

I was curious how much Wooten's disdain for compression on his bass parts runs up against Battaglia's instincts as an engineer. “Victor and Béla have it in their head sometimes that they don't want something to hold back their emotion when they're playing,” Battaglia explains, “so it's a catch-22 to try to get them to have the best of both. [Battaglia would say about adding compression,] ‘Trust me — the emotion will still come through.’ So I did some compression after the fact, but definitely never a lot.”

Although Wooten was heavily involved in the mix process, Battaglia did bring mixes home and work on them in his own studio, which, like Wooten's setup, features a pair of Meyer Sound HD-1 monitors. Battaglia also has a subwoofer and a pair of Genelec 8020As. “It was a bass record,” Battaglia points out, “and I wanted it to be good, and I wanted a lot of bass. But you know, it had to be right. So I really had to struggle and work like hell to make sure that I could get it sonically correct at home first, and then let Victor change any volume stuff later.”

VICTOR WOOTEN: A DISCOGRAPHY

Solo Albums

• Palmystery (Heads Up, 2008)
• Soul Circus (Vanguard, 2005)
• Live in America (Compass, 2001)
• Yin Yang (Compass, 1999)
• What Did He Say? (Compass, 1997)
• A Show of Hands (Compass, 1996)

With Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

• The Hidden Land (Sony BMG, 2006)
• Live at the Quick (Sony, 2002), DVD
• Outbound (Sony, 2000)
• Left of Cool (Warner Brothers, 1998)
• Live Art (Warner Brothers, 1996)
• Three Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (Warner Brothers, 1993)
• UFO Tofu (Warner Brothers, 1992)
• Flight of the Cosmic Hero (Warner Brothers, 1991)
• Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Brothers, 1990)

Other Credits (Selected)

• India Arie, “Summer” from Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship (Motown, 2006)
• Mike Stern, Who Let the Cats Out? (Heads Up, 2006)
• Jaco Pastorius Big Band, Word of Mouth Revisited (Heads Up, 2003)
• Dave Matthews Band, Live in Chicago 12-19-98 at the United Center (RCA, 2001)
• Paul Brady, Spirits Colliding (Mercury, 1995)
• Marc O'Connor, New Nashville Cats (Warner Brothers, 1991)