I've been playing bass for over 10 years now. Most of those years were spent listening to Primus. One night I saw Victor Wooten playing with Bela Fleck and a few years later I saw them at some big outdoor fest. About a year ago I got to meet Victor Wooten. Well, that is if you consider, "Hey, how you doing?" an actual meeting.
This CD found its way into my collecting awhile ago. This was one of my few "I don't buy many hardcore CD's anymore" purchases. It seems as I grew older I actually wanted to hear talent and not watch people beat the crap out of each other. Yea.
Victor Wooten is amazing bass player. Amazing doesn't even do justice. This guy is capable of such beautiful melodies and saliva-inducing grooves. While Wooten can certainly shread some of the songs on this album aren't all that great. From a pure bass playing display even the bad songs are good but for the most part I usually hit Skip on a few tracks.
Stand out tracks include What Did He Say?, three minutes of smiles for miles. Norwegian Wood, a Beatles song, brings me to tears. I've seen Wooten play this live. That almost made me cry, too. The track Bro Jon is more fun than should be had without guitars. I think theres three or four bass tracks on here, along with an odd time signature, and the song just makes me happy. Finally A Little Buzz, a fun little song about not needing drugs to get high, is a soupy mix of bass noodling and odd-as-heck drumming.
Sadly those are some of the best "songs" on the entire album. The entire album is filled with mind blowing bass playing but for a non-bass playing music lover they might not find much to smile about here.
Article comments
1 - Guido
I play bass for a band called Gebo. I switched from acoustic guitar not long before joining the band. Since then I have been listening to as much bass-oriented music as possible. I downloaded 'Norwegian Wood' from a file sharing service and never discovered what album it was on. It's truly awe-inspiring. Thanks for your post, now I know which album to shop for.