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Victor Lemonte Wooten: What Did He Say?

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Compass Records
Released: 1997
Time:
 61:59
Category: Jazz
Producer(s): See Artists ...
Rating: ********.. (8/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.victorwooten.com
Appears with: Béla Fleck and the Flecktones
Purchase date: 2001.10.10
Price in €: 14,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Yo Victa (Wooten) - 0:07
[2] What Did He Say? (Blair/Storey/Wooten) - 3:20
[3] What You Won't Do for Love (Caldwell/Caldwell/Kettner) - 4:43
[4] Cherokee (Noble) - 1:49
[5] Don't Wanna Cry (Wooten) - 5:07
[6] The Loneliest Monk (Wooten) - 4:35
[7] A Chance (Blair) - 2:54
[8] Radio W-00-10 (Wooten) - 1:06
[9] Norwegian Wood [This Bird Has Flown] (Lennon/McCartney) - 4:52
[10] Bro John (Wooten) - 4:18
[11] Naima (Coltrane) - 5:57
[12] Sometimes I Laugh (Wooten) - 3:20
[13] My Life (Wooten) - 4:45
[14] The Sojourn of Arjuna (Wooten) - 6:29
[15] Buzz Intro - 0:54
[16] A Little Buzz (Wooten) - 0:31
[17] Kids Didn't Change - 2:46
[18] Heaven Is Where the Heart Is (Wooten) - 5:03

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


VICTOR LEMONTE WOOTEN - Bass, Guitar, Percussion, Piano, Electric Bass, Cello, Programming, Vocals, Background Vocals, Handclapping, Engineer, Clapping, Acoustic Bass, Producer, Mixing, Stomping

RAYMOND MASSEY - Drums, Snare Drums
JIM ROBERTS - Percussion
ROD MCGAHA - Trumpet
OTEIL BURBRIDGE - Electric Bass
JEFF COFFIN - Tenor Saxophone
BÉLA FLECK - Banjo
JAMES GENUS - Acoustic Bass
PAUL MCCANDLESS - Soprano Saxophone
ANN MCCRARY - Background Vocals
DAVY SPILLANE - Uillean Pipes
KURT STOREY - Background Vocals, Handclapping, Producer, Engineer, Clapping, Mastering, Mixing, Stomping
FUTURE MAN - Piano, Drums, Keyboards
J.D. BLAIR - Bass, Percussion, Drums, Background Vocals, Handclapping, Producer, Snare Drums, Clapping, Drum Programming, Mixing, Stomping
MATT SMITH - Vocals
ELIJAH "Pete" WOOTEN - Vocals
BEN CURTIS - Laughs
ROBERT BAILEY, Jr. - Background Vocals
MICHAEL KOTT - Vocals
HOLLY WOOTEN - Handclapping
JESSIE WOOTEN - Laughs
JUSTICE WOOTEN - Laughs
REGI WOOTEN - Acoustic Guitar
RUDY WOOTEN - Alto Saxophone

TONY BAKER - Photography
DAVID BENNETT - Management
CHRIS ORANGE - Mixing
GRIFFIN NORMAN - Design, Package Design
JOE HAYDEN - Mixing
SANDY JENKINS - Mixing

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1997 CD Compass 74245



A superb, varied, playfully crafted disc, and an absolutely stunning effort that surpasses expectations. The music varies from funk and rap to a fantastic version of John Coltrane's "Naima," to a beautiful, very different, yet quite recognizable without being boring, version of the Lennon/McCartney standard "Norwegian Wood." The shifts of stance, posture, and presentation are at times abrupt but never disconcerting; rather, they provoke thought and reflection. These shifts appear at times between the tracks and at times in the midst of the pieces themselves. The disc is never inaccessible; the combination of jazz and Irish music brings to mind the seemingly ridiculous combinations of Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains. The big departure from the first album is that this is not a solo bass album. He uses other instruments, and uses them well. Not to be missed.

Bob Gottlieb - All Music Guide
© 1992 - 2001 AEC One Stop Group, Inc.



There's nothing bass-ic about this disc. Wooten is, of course, the bass wizard of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. He follows up his solo bass debut with this far-reaching disc that features a lot of help from friends and family. The sound ranges from the fiercely funky opening title tune through a good bit of 70s-style funk and even a run through the jazz chestnut "Cherokee" with a bass lead; this cut features Wooten brothers Regi on guitar, Rudy on sax and Joseph on piano. Things slow down periodically, as in "The Loneliest Monk," which features Wooten himself on sly and silly, yet dark, cello. The disc quiets finally for the personal hymn "Heaven is Where the Heart Is," which features Unborn Baby Wooten on "heartbeat."

Jeffery Lindholm - November 12, 1997
Dirty Linen (12/97-1/98, p.75)



...just the right combination of fantastic chops and dynamics, interesting production, songwriting smarts, warmth and humor....no matter the volume of tracks, it's always the clarity of his ideas on bass that comes through...

Down Beat (3/98, p.62) - 5 stars (out of 5)



What do you do when you're known as one of the most brilliant sidemen of an uncharted idiom, and it's time to get up and do a record of your own music? Victor Wooten's second CD "What Did He Say?" provides an extraordinary answer to that question. It's not a difficult album, as the title might suggest, nor is it any more classifiable than his "other" project - Bela Fleck & the Flecktones - could be called bluegrass music. What is amazing is how accessible Wooten's heart and soul and muse are for his artistry. This is not an album by a bass guitar. This is an album by a remarkable man. And the album expresses a man's concerns, not the personal triumphs of a man's hands over a large fretboard strung with telephone poles. So, what do you get? You certainly do get some musical heart massage. Wooten's mastery of the bass is breathtaking on a song everybody knows - "Norwegian Wood". What makes it all the more endearing is that Victor seems to 'doink' a passage before the final recap, but after a sigh, he departs from this momentary lapse into a precise filigree of jaw-dropping arpeggios that bring to mind a coven of giant birds lifting off on a rush of huge wings. This is the single most incredible solo virtuoso bass guitar performance I have ever heard, and yet this piece doesn't appear until the ninth cut of the album! What happens first is a brilliant concoction of humor and phonetic flim-flam ("What Did He Say?"), lush beauty ("What You Won't Do For Love"), an entirely new reading on the traditional New Orleans second-line bass groove ("Bro' John" - sung by Wooten's father), some Wooten Family vocalese ("Heaven is Where the Heart is"), Celtic Miles Davis, acid jazz a la De La Soul, and some "found" passages that are entertaining through repeated listening, and which inform the album as it evolves again and again. "Don't Wanna Cry", and "My Life" are both songs with focused lyrics and prosyletizable messages. And Wooten is a great singer with a friendly voice. As you'd expect, you get jazz, you get bluegrass, you get funk, and you get virtuoso bass, but Wooten gives so much more. Obviously, he wasn't brought up to settle for less than he is capable of. "What Did He Say?" is a terrifically smart album, with a huge heart. And a big bottom. Four stars, because that's all I have to give. Best record of the year so far.

© 2001, Larry Good, All Rights Reserved.



This Wednesday, one of the world's most talented bassists, Victor Wooten, is taking time off from his gigs with the Grammy-award winning band, Bela Fleck and The Flectones to speak the language he knows best-stellar bass guitar. Already touted as Bass Player of the Year in 1996 by Bass Guitar magazine, mainly for his solo debut, A Show Of Hands, Victor is at it again, this time to promote his second solo release, What Did He Say. This week buzz caught up with Victor at his home in Nashville, Tennessee. He has always said that he "talks" with his bass about life "as he sees it," but listening to Victor really speak over the telephone was just as inspiring as hearing his music. Listen.

buzz: A lot of people here are excited that you're paying us a visit. And you're playing with your brother Reggie right?

V.W.: Yeah, Reggie will be there. It'll be the first time that I'll be out with him. So it's gonna be great. Everyone will see where I get it all from.

buzz: Because he taught you when you were around 3 or so right? Now how is it that you held up a bass when you were 3?

V.W.: Well, you're actually capable of doing much more than people give you credit for at that age. I started on one of Reggie's guitars. He took two of the strings off of it and that was my bass for the first few years. I played whatever was on the radio back then, Motown, Sly Stone, James Brown, stuff like that.

buzz: And you moved around quite a bit when you were young. How do you like living in Nashville, Tennessee now?

V.W.: Well, it's a big enough city for me, lots of music, all the record labels are there, great studios, anything you want to do musically. And the living is easy. You don't have to drive far to get out of town and surround yourself with trees and stuff. I'm not much of a city person for living. I like to be surrounded by trees. I'm a nature boy.

buzz: So do you draw your inspiration from nature?

V.W.: Oh yeah. Whenever you're in the woods the energy is always good, and I can't really say the same for the city. But don't get me wrong, there are good things that the city offers. The woods always seem to slow you down to the proper pace, where the city speeds you up quite a bit. It's not that one is better than the other, it's just whatever you prefer, that's all.

buzz: Have you ever dedicated songs to nature?

V.W.: Well yes, on my first CD, I had a song on there called "the Vision" which was dedicated to a guy named Tom Brown Jr. He's a nature guy and teacher out in New Jersey. He teaches a wilderness survival awareness and tracking school, and I spend as much time as I can with him, learning and helping out with different classes. I always have a thank you to him and his school on my cds. I always talk about life in my songs, life as I see it and sometimes life as other people see it.

buzz: It's interesting that you say that in that way Victor, because if you learned to play music at such a young age, it must have been like picking up a second language right?

V.W.: Definitely, you hit the nail on the head. Exactly, no different.

buzz: So you're talking when you're playing. To what extent do you feel people are listening and understanding?

V.W.: I think people are understanding very well, because of the success that I've had. My first cd was strictly solo bass. No other instruments or overdubs. And I made that record for me. But then people got it. It won awards, record of the year with Bass Player Magazine, I won Bass Player of the Year, got lots of radio play. So that let me know that people are getting it and it really lets me know that I should just stick to what is true to me and there will be someone else out there that will get it.

buzz: So how does it feel to be described as the "Bass player hero for the 90's?"

V.W.: Well, it's kind of two-fold. Of course I appreciate all of that, but at the same time it's like, the guys that I grew up listening to are still around-Stanley Clark, Larry Graham, Bootsie. Why am I winning over them? So I look at it that way too. And I use it to push me to get better, because the better I get, the better the next generation of bass players will be.

buzz: And what about walking down the street and getting recognized?

V.W.: That's still a little strange. I still haven't gotten used to that, but it's a good feeling because all of us Flectones are regular guys. We're approachable and we're all friends. We just treat everybody as our friends and then it works great. But sometimes you do get tired of dealing with the public, because you have to everyday. But those are the people that are allowing me to do what I do best. So I owe them.

buzz: To an extent.

V.W.: To an extent, yeah. In life you really don't owe anybody anything. But I feel that it is my duty to talk to these people and be around them and let them know that I appreciate what they're doing for me.

buzz: So the public may be one reason why you like to get out in nature.

V.W.: Well yeah, but because of life you know, especially where I'm at now. It's not just about playing music, it's definitely the music business. So everyday I'm on the phone. It doesn't matter where I'm at, managers, booking agents, doing interviews, answering email. I've got like 160 email messages that I have to go through and answer.

buzz: Do you really feel obligated to answer every one?

V.W.: No, but I enjoy it.That particular address is attached to our website, which is open to the public. The address is www.VictorWooten.com. I love it. It's allowed me to get in touch with many people all over the world. I also have a chat room on my website, so I'll go in there after a gig and talk to people from France, Australia, all over, and it's amazing. The world is getting smaller in a good way. But the computer can also become addicting. You can sit in front of that thing for hours. But that's each individual's decision.

buzz: It sounds like you're not the type of person who likes to criticize or judge other people.

V.W.: There's no need for it, and we can't do it accurately anyway. Everyone has the right to make their own choices. When everyone learns to allow everyone else to be themselves, then I believe that the world will be in much better shape.

buzz: Now what are some other things that you think need to happen for the world to get in better shape?

V.W.: Acceptance. And love. Just about every conflict happens because somebody doesn't think the way you do. And why should they? The thing is, if you accept how they think and work towards an agreement, then everybody's working for the same thing. And then love you know. If you approach every decision from a love standpoint you can't go wrong. It doesn't mean that you'll always agree with the person, but you can't go wrong. All it takes is a decision. The thing is, when you get in a bad mood, it's your decision. So why can't you decide instead to be in a loving mood? It's very simple.

buzz: Like a deep breath. How did you adopt this philosophy?

V.W.: Well it starts from parents, and you take what they teach you and grow from that, the same way I took what Stanley Clark did, and Larry Graham. I added to it, advanced it. As a kid I spent a lot of time thinking, looking at the world and really really looking at myself, looking at the things I liked and disliked about myself,and changed it. Whenever you have a question, life will lead you to the answer if you keep the question firmly in your mind. I've had questions about life and I've kind of been led to answers.

buzz: Real heavy ones Victor, like death?

V.W.: That one I learned to understand when I was quite young. Death in my opinion doesn't exist because we think of death as just our body dying, but it doesn't take much to realize that we're more than our bodies. That just makes sense to me, that the part of you that you can't put a finger on doesn't disappear. Everything is a vibration and it never stops vibrating.

buzz: So do you think that your music comes from you or through you?

V.W.: Both. I think it comes through me from me, from a higher part of me, the part of me that is connected to God. So a lot of the times the music that comes is unconscious. But I do still think that somehow it is still a part of me, cause I believe that we are all connected to that source and to each other.

buzz: So it's like you're a filter.

V.W.: Right, and the idea is to clear out the filter as much as possible.

buzz: Is there any technique you use to try and do that?

V.W.: Meditation is a good one. That helps quiet the mind down. But more importantly, if you can consciously decide to try and change negative thinking to positive thinking, your thought process will be clearer, and that leaves room for that music to come through. buzz

Buzz Online - Thursday 24 September 1998
© Illini Media Company 1998.



Behind the Scenes on the making of Victor Wooten’s What Did He Say?

It has been said that the best way to succeed in a new venture is to emulate the actions of someone who has had previous success in that same area. That is the specific reason that Bass Frontiers is debuting this new series of features called “In The Mix”. The goal of this new department is to go behind the scenes and find out how some of the most successful albums were recorded. Hopefully, you will discover new ideas that will help you on your recordings.

To kick this new feature off, we called Victor Wooten and asked him to share some of the things that went into the making of his newest CD What Did He Say?, the dynamic follow-up to his incredible debut solo album called A Show of Hands.

Since your debut CD was so successful, did you feel a lot of pressure or intimidation in trying to follow it up?

I was very excited, but not intimidated at all. Because the first album was totally solo, I knew that I could easily make an album with other musicians. I also was looking forward to experimenting with overdubbing bass parts. The album that was more intimidating was the first one! It was much more intimidating trying to make the solo bass record work. I knew that it would be very easy to get some musicians together and do a band record, but for my first record I really didn’t want to do that. So that was really the one that was more intimidating. On What Did He Say? I was able to sit back and relax a little more.

Is there any one song on your new CD that is particularly special to you?

One song that I really like is called “The Loneliest Monk”. I really like that song for several reasons, one of which is how it came to me. I was driving in a Ryder truck in Upstate New York, moving some furniture, and the song just came to me. I was with my wife at the time and I said, “Hey Holly! Write this down.” I had her write down the basic bass line and then all the lyrics, and when I got home I recorded it. When songs come to me like that I know that it will be a song that at least I like.

I truly feel that the final recording of “The Loneliest Monk” is very, very different than anything I am familiar with. It reminds me of the Oompa Loompas from Willie Wonka!

Is it true that you recorded this album on the new Roland VS-880?

I recorded half of the album on the VS-880 and I did the other half on the Tascam version of the ADAT.

Did you recorded this album in your home?

In my home and on the road. Because of the VS-880, I can now easily record while I am touring. A lot of the bass parts were done on the road, and all of the horn parts were done on the road, also. I would go to people’s homes with the VS-880 and record their parts. When Paul McCandless was on the road with us, we recorded his soprano sax parts for the song “Sojourn of Aruna” before sound check one day. I then asked Bela (Fleck) to come in and play the same melody. We may have even recorded those tracks on the tour bus. Believe it or not, a lot of the bass lines were done in my dressing room before the show. In fact, there is a funny little story behind another one of my favorite songs called “Don’t Wanna Cry”. I was in Japan doing a clinic tour and I had this Boss DR 5 rhythm machine, which is like a band-in-a-box, and I came up with the groove for that song with it. It wasn’t until a long time later, when I was recording this album, that I started working with that groove again. I just took the stereo outs on the DR 5 and plugged them into two tracks on the VS-880 and recorded the groove. I was on the road at the time and one day I came up with the lyrics, so I recorded them in my dressing room right before a show. All I had was an Audio Technica microphone that I use with my DAT player, and I used it to record the vocals. That vocal track is the exact same one that appears on the album. When we later mixed the album, I isolated the vocal track and you could actually hear Paul McCandless warming up in the background!

I have to tell you that the piano solo on “The Loneliest Monk” was recorded by using the Boss DR 5. That unit has these little buttons that you can use to play the different sounds and I just called up a piano sound and recorded the part!

Would you say that the new recording technologies have been vital to your pursuit of a solo recording career?

Absolutely! It is getting so easy. On the road I can record a part and be able to keep it, It doesn’t have to be a test idea. Sometimes, I would do the bass parts on the road, then come home and sync my VS-880 to my Tascam. I would then get JD Blair to come over and lay down the drum tracks. So I would put the drum parts on the Tascam and my bass parts would be on the VS-880.

When you record your bass on the road, do you plug directly into the VS-880?

95% of the time I plug straight into the VS-880. A good example of this is my version of “Norwegian Wood” on the new album. I recorded that song using just my bass and the VS-880. The reverb you hear comes from the internal effects processor on the VS-880. Initially I thought the engineer for the album would want to try a different reverb or something, but we ended up keeping the original sound.

With this kind of recording freedom you probably have material already prepared for your next album.

Oh yeah! I had so many songs ready for this album that I had to cut some.

How did the song “What Did He Say?” get its name?

My friend Matt, who shows up later in the album, is very good at speaking gibberish. He can speak it so well that he makes you think he is actually saying something. At NAMM shows I will bring him up to my friends and have him speak gibberish to them! I will tell him, “Go get that guy!” He will then go over and just start talking absolute nonsense. The funny thing is that people are so friendly to him. They pretend that they know what he is saying, and I know that they don’t! (Laughs)

One day JD and I were playing in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on one of our solo dates, and we hooked our mics into my Lexicon Jam Man. For some reason we were talking about Matt’s ability to speak gibberish, and the phrase “What did he say?” came up. We ended up looping it and it sounded so funny! Later that night we played it as a song for the first time, and when I returned home I recorded it. It is kind of my tribute to Matt because all during the verses I am not saying anything.

Where did you take the cover photo for the album?

That’s in my front yard, believe it or not. Holly and I just bought a house and the front yard is mostly woods. I asked the photographer to come over and we just went out into the yard.

So this is truly a homemade album, isn’t it?

Definitely. We even recorded the drums in my living room because it has such a nice, high ceiling. We just had to unplug the refrigerator, turn off the air conditioner and start recording. The only parts that were recorded in a real studio were the two background vocalists on the song “Don’t Wanna Cry”, and that was only because we came up with the idea for the parts when we were mixing the album in a professional studio.

Copyright 1997 Information Revolution Publishing.
 

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