Amazing Grace and Complete Mastery

Friday night was spent at Roberts Wesleyan (nice aud) enjoying Victor Wooten and his band. WOW. Phenomenal musicians and really great people.

Highlights: Victor's solo. Alone on-stage, Victor and his bass. He started with Norwegian Wood, moved through many songs that were familiar but I cannot name on to Chopsticks and Heart & Soul, Night in Tunisia, wound his way through Misty and ended up with Amazing Grace. An appropriate song to end on, I thought, and an apt phrase with which to describe Victor Wooten since he has That in spades. Joe had two different words that he used to describe Victor's playing . . . "complete mastery." He said he's never heard anyone play the bass with the complete mastery of the instrument that Victor has.

In addition to the amazing Victor, he had a female vocalist with a deep, rich voice and her own special Grace; a keyboardist who was "just filling in" on the tour but who sounded like he'd been playing with them forever; Victor's brother on guitar; a bass "tech" who also plays (and he really PLAYS) on another bass; and this amazing drummer, Derico Watson, who played a tune that was recorded on the new disc (Palmystery) with three drummers--but he did it all himself live. And with light-up drumsticks! Very cool.

On top of the great show (about 2.5 hours), the band members were waiting outside the venue to sign the merchandise, ticket stubs, basses, whatever, that people wanted signed. I bought a t-shirt for Drew and Victor's book, The Music Lesson, for Caroline and Joe bought Palmystery. I had the book and CD signed by everyone. They were all so gracious and lovely. I will definitely want to see them when they come to town again, and I strongly encourage all of you to see them, too.

yours in music,
Tracy