Victor Wooten at Variety Playhouse

Well, if you weren't there, you missed some really cool stuff! Our friends Rev. Paul and Kathy Cowley (of the Dunwoody Cowleys ;-)) were kind enough to invite us to the Victor Wooten/J.D. Blair show at the Variety Playhouse last Friday. This show was part of their aptly named "2 Minds, 1 Groove" tour. I suppose it could have been even more aptly named the "7 Minds, 1 Groove" tour, since Victor brought out his son and two daughters to perform, and J.D. brought out his son and a friend for a little impromptu drumming. Great stuff.

How to describe it? Since it's a duo (guests notwithstanding), Victor plays a lot of looping phrases with his bass, laying down a "typical" bass line that he then solos over. Meanwhile, J.D. Blair puts down all manner of percussion and samples, doing a masterful job of complementing the crazy stuff Victor is doing...and with a hilarious and entertaining personality. One thing that was really hip is when Victor built a scale by playing adding one note at a time to the loop...a real mind-bender, since you have to put the next note correctly at a slightly different place each time. Just for bonus points, Victor decided to build from the middle to the end of the scale--then went back and filled in backwards from the middle to the beginning of the scale. Nice.

If you haven't checked it out, make a note for next time! There may be times when you want to hear a 7-piece band (ahem); but this duo is really unique and fun to hear.