The Wooten Brothers
Thursday, 9 May 2024, at 8:00 PM
Portorož / Avditorij / Slovenia
The Wooten Brothers’ visit to Portorož’s Avditorij delivered one of the concert highlights of the year when it comes to jazz programming in Slovenia. We’re only in May 2024, but we can already say that this encounter with the formidable jazz funk and jazz fusion quartet was one of the musical high-water marks in the jazz sphere and its cross-genre adventures.
The four Wooten brothers — among them the undisputed star, the sensational bass guitar virtuoso Victor Wooten, five-time Grammy winner, co-founding member of Béla Fleck and The Flecktones, and the man voted onto Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the ten greatest bassists of all time in 2011! A few years back, Victor revived the four-brother lineup, joined by three more masters of their craft: keyboardist and vocalist Joseph Wooten, drummer Roy “Future Man” Wooten, and guitarist Regi Wooten. These men grew up together as a family alongside their instruments, played together, and grew together as musicians into one single musical body. They’ve developed their own chemistry, their own unified palette of musical expression that’s honestly hard to put into words. You have to hear it. Live.
Brotherhood aside, on this evening in Portorož all roads led to Victor — or from him. With his career breakthrough, he became the most resonant and sought-after name in music among the brothers — whether for touring or as a studio gun-for-hire. Among others, he has collaborated with the likes of Jaco Pastorius, Dave Matthews Band, India Arie, Keb’Mo, Tommy Emmanuel (who, by the way, plays Opatija on 7 August 2024), Cory Wong, and Bootsy Collins. The lineup is rounded out by Joseph Wooten, keyboardist for the legendary The Steve Miller Band since 1993, and the colorful drummer and percussionist Roy Wooten a.k.a. Future Man, who spent many years as a member of Béla Fleck and The Flecktones. Future Man is truly a visionary and an inventor. His creations include the Drumitar — which he showcased towards the end of the concert at the Portorož Avditorij that evening — and the RoyEl keyboard. Then there’s Regi Wooten, the eldest of the brothers, a multi-instrumentalist whose primary role is guitarist — guitar strapped almost at his throat, as befits the jazz world — who has developed an astonishing technique over the years. This is further adorned by occasional bursts of supersonic speed; two-handed tapping is probably his weapon of choice in these acrobatics. Picture a little bit of Vernon Reid, a little Stanley Jordan, and then some….
Their funk jazz and fusion are something else entirely. Alongside the heavily accentuated funk, you feel influences of R&B and even bluegrass — the guys grew up on James Brown, Earth Wind and Fire, and Sly and The Family Stone, and channeled it all into an expressive conglomerate that is, in this galaxy at least, truly one of a kind.
Greeted by thunderous applause as they hit the stage, The Wooten Brothers quickly whipped the packed auditorium into high gear with two of Joseph Wooten’s original compositions: Not Just Religion, followed by Unity (both featured on Joseph’s solo album Soul of Freedom). Naturally it was Joseph who commanded the attention early on with his extraordinary virtuosity and startling manual dexterity, before Regi capped it with a fired-up guitar solo escapade. Next came a lengthy drum intro from Future Man that morphed into 2 Timers, followed by a showcase of the boundless freedoms that jazz-rock fusion demands, underpinned by a solid funk springboard — all wrapped up with Pentagon Square (an original Victor Wooten composition). Victor then launched into another passage of his own, methodically layering motif upon motif with the help of delay looping. He built up a remarkable sonic rainbow shot through with brilliant glimpses of his innate rhythmic genius. There was no telling where the brothers would turn next. That’s the thrill of a concert like this — tailor-made for connoisseurs who know how to savor the very best that musical art has to offer. Sure enough, they rolled into Sex in A Pan, originally from Béla Fleck and The Flecktones.
Victor, doubling as the evening’s MC, used the pauses between songs for storytelling — anecdotes from the lives, characters, and careers of the Wooten brothers. He made sure to mention the late Rudy Wooten, the saxophone player of the family, adding that his spirit was present on stage that night in Portorož. There was also an entertaining digression about a certain Consuelo Lee, aunt of filmmaker Spike Lee. His aunt was a jazz pianist who deserves much of the credit for spreading jazz to the countryside and into the hands of young talent — something Victor experienced firsthand back in his school days. Consuelo had revived the Snow Hill Institute (founded by her grandfather William J. Edward). Hundreds of children attended it, gaining knowledge across various artistic disciplines. The Wooten brothers paid tribute to Consuelo with a performance of Consuela Smiles. Following that, the quartet launched into a vividly reimagined version of Clifford Jones’s original John Coltrane, which sustained the sense of superiority that ran through this entire concert spectacle.
Then came the story of a lost-and-found demo cassette — the very first recording of the Wooten brothers playing together, made when they were just kids. This set up the final third of the concert, in which the group threw a proper funk and disco party, naturally backed by those colorful jazz twists and curves. Victor also made a point of mentioning that those recordings feature the late saxophonist and brother Rudy, who would experiment by playing two saxophones simultaneously — Van Der Graaf Generator fans will know what that’s about. Before this final-third set piece, Victor announced that the brothers are working on a special record that will build on those demo recordings. They sent the audience into the grand finale with a taste of what to expect from the album. A time-machine blast back to ’70s disco funk, with every track — Ow Come On, Singing And Dancing — laser-focused on getting bodies moving. Hero, up next, was equally riveting. Joseph, who also handled lead vocals throughout, accompanied his vocal performance on this track with a vivid use of a talk box. In Sweat too, the rhythmic spring of the funk harness showed no sign of letting up, and you could feel the concert building toward its peak.
For the grand finale and encore, the crew took on James Brown’s Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine. Funk jazz at the peak of peaks. But within this adaptation came one more treat: a little game called ‘counting the bar.’ And not just any bar. We are, after all, dealing with The Wooten Brothers. E minor and an 11/8 time signature. The guys lock into the rhythm as one. All at once. Not a single stumble. Straight in the bullseye! They don’t miss. All they did was look at each other. No kidding! Staggering and genuinely hard to describe. Victor then started counting the bar out loud, trying to get the audience to join in more enthusiastically.
The performance is genuinely hard to compare to anything. A breathtaking, one-of-a-kind show that only this formidable quartet — bursting at the seams with skill, knowledge, and talent — could conjure. The boiling point inside the Avditorij had lifted the audience to their feet long before the spectacle was over, seriously shaking the foundations of the venue! Even after the concert, the hall glowed with a feeling that the band hadn’t quite left the stage yet. The magic the guys created was all-encompassing, infectious, and for everyone — especially the hypersensitive — downright hypnotic.
After the concert, the guys gathered in the lobby to take photos with fans, sign autographs, and chat. Incredible accessibility from musical entities of this stature — which only underscored the greatness of this extraordinary musical outfit’s artistic standing and reputation. An evening with The Wooten Brothers is the kind of concert where superlatives never run dry. Unforgettable and unique!
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. Not Just Religion (orig. Joseph Wooten And the Hands Of Soul)
2. Unity (orig. Joseph Wooten And the Hands Of Soul)
3. Two Timers
4. Pentagon Square
5. Sex in a Pan (orig. Bela Fleck And the Fleckstones)
6. Consuela Smiles
7. John Coltrane (orig. Clifford Jones)
8. Aw Come On
9. Singing and Dancing
10. Hero
11. Sweat
12. Family Affair
—encore—
13. Sex Machine (orig. James Brown)
