Five-time GRAMMY award-winning bass player, producer, composer, author, and educator Victor Wooten will release his first album in five years, TRYPNOTYX, September 8. In support of the album, he will hit the road with the Victor Wooten Trio this fall following August dates with Béla Fleck & The Flecktones of which he is a founding member. A full list of dates is below.
Produced by Wooten, TRYPNOTYX features legendary drummer Dennis Chambers (Bootsy Collins, Santana), veteran saxophonist Bob Franceschini (Mike Stern, Paul Simon), and also features singer Varijashree Venugopal and comedian/voicetrumentalist Michael Winslow (Police Academy). The album is now available for pre-order.
From the sizzling “Funky D,” which features Winslow’s voice and sound effects and recalls the night a kindergarten-aged Wooten saw the Godfather of soul on stage for the first time, to “Cupid,” which features bucolic textures, a sylvan flute, and spoken word exchanges with Wooten and his children, themes from his life thread through the album, tying virtuoso performance and life experience together.
“Music is a great way – and a safe way – to teach just about any life principle,” Wooten insists. “To be in a band, you have to listen to each other. Bands are at their best when every instrument is different, not the same. Everyone takes turns talking. Everyone speaks their voice. A lot of times musicians might ask, ‘What would you like me to play?’ I say, “Listen to the music. The music will tell you exactly what it needs.”
Named “one of the Top 10 Bassists of All Time” by Rolling Stone, he has been voted “Bassist of the Year” three times by Bass Player magazine reader’s poll, and in February 2017 Huffington Post named him one of “50 Iconic Black Trailblazers,” pictured just after President Barack Obama.
The youngest of five boys, Wooten began playing music at two years old, and was playing gigs by the tender age of five with the family band, the Wooten Brothers, opening for Curtis Mayfield and War, among others. He first “wowed music heads” nationwide (Kansas City Star) in 1987, as a founding member of Béla Fleck & The Flecktones.
Not only an accomplished musician, Wooten is also an acrobat, magician, and skilled naturalist, who created Victor Wooten’s Center for Music and Nature, a 147-acre retreat in Tennessee for people of all ages. As an author, he penned a novel, The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search For Growth through Music, which is now part of the curriculum at The Berklee College of Music, where he is a performance scholar in residence, Stanford University, and other prestigious institutions.
VICTOR WOOTEN ON TOUR w/Béla Fleck & The Flecktones
August 2 – Carnegie Music Hall – Pittsburgh, PA
August 3 – Celebrate Brooklyn – Brooklyn, NY
August 4 – Newport Jazz Festival – Newport, RI
August 5 – The Egg – Albany, NY
August 6 – The Filene Center – Vienna, VA
August 8 – Count Basie Theater – Red Bank, NJ
August 9 – Longwood Gardens – Kennett Square, PA
August 10 – Smith’s Opera House – Geneva, NY
August 11 – Chautauqua Institute – Chautauqua, NY
August 12 – Freedom Hill – Detroit, MI
August 13 – PNC Pavilion – Cincinnati, OH
August 15 – Denver Botanic Gardens – Denver, CO
August 16 – Red Butte – Salt Lake City, UT
August 18 – Mountain Winery – Saratoga, CA
August 20 – Wiltern Theater – Los Angeles, CA
VICTOR WOOTEN TRIO TOUR
September 28-October 1 – Jazz Alley – Seattle, WA
October 2 – Rev Hall – HE – Portland, OR
October 3 – OK Theater – Enterprise, OR
October 4 – Cargo – Reno, NV
October 5-6 – Yoshi’s – Oakland, CA
October 7 – Musicbox – San Diego, CA
October 26 – The Ark – Ann Arbor, MI
October 27 – Rex – Pittsburgh, PA
October 28 – Woodlands – Columbus, OH
October 29 – C2G Music Hall – Fort Wayne, IN
October 30 – Headliners – Louisville, KY
November 1 – Blue Note – Columbia, MO
November 2 – Vogue – Indianapolis, IN
November 3 – Songbird Guitar Museum – Chattanooga, TN
November 4 – Beachland Ballroom – Cleveland, OH
November 5 – City Winery – Chicago, IL
November 7 – Madrid Theater – Kansas City, MO
November 8 – Gothic Theatre – Denver, CO
November 9 – Caribou Room – Nederland, CO
December 8-9 – The Sinclair – Cambridge, MA
December 10 – The Egg – Albany, NY
December 12 – Brooklyn Bowl – Brooklyn, NY
December 13 – Towne Crier – Beacon, NY
December 14 – Anthology – Rochester, NY
December 15 – Keswick Theatre – Glenside, PA
December 16 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
VICTOR WOOTEN’S CENTER FOR MUSIC & NATURE
July 18 – VixCamps Music/Nature Camp – Nashville, TN
July 24 – VixCamps Composing, Arranging and Performance (C.A.P.) Camp – Nashville, TN
August 27 – VixCamps Spirit of Music Camp – Nashville, TN
September 1 – Theory Weekend – Nashville, TN
