CD reviews: Victor Wooten – Palmystery – Issue 69

Victor Wooten is one of those names revered by muso types, a so-called musician’s musician, but little known by the general public. And for me he’s something of a discovery. Having performed with Bela Fleck & the Flecktones (an unlikely but rather excellent group based around Fleck’s electric banjo chops), bass player Wooten is now up to album number five, and it’s a cracker.

It’s certainly Wooten’s fleet-fingered bass playing that’s the star attraction here, and the exceptional quality of the recording fully mines the depths to which his instrument sinks. But primarily, Wooten plays lead with his instrument, so he treats it almost like a guitar (and a percussion instrument) and at times I was convinced that he had at least a dozen strings on his bass, if not a dozen fingers on his hand.

While Palmystery isn’t a spectacularly cohesive collection of songs, it makes up for it by being full of character and more life affirming and idiosyncratic than we’ve a right to expect from a clever-clogs muso like Wooten. Yes, there are tracks where Wooten and pals go into tricky jazz-rock fusion mode (well, he did once play with Jaco Pastorius) but even when the playing is mind boggling in its execution, there’s still something funky and approachable. Elsewhere, Eastern and African influences abound, while occasionally I had to stop and check that I wasn’t playing some lost Sly & the Family Stone track.

Great recording, great playing, and personality too: what more could you ask for?

Gary Steel