The Victor Wooten Band came through Upstate NY on their tour hitting Rochester, Buffalo and Albany (with Jimmy Herring Band). On their stop in Rochester, Wooten also did a bass clinic at the House of Guitars. He repeated a lot of what he said in my previous interview, but it was really interesting to see these lessons acted out or performed on stage in a way that we can understand more clearly. He even randomly picked out one lucky person from the crowd, Kevin Murray, to help him demonstrate how picturing your drummer playing with you in your head helps you practice better.
Many of the folks who were at the clinic also made it out to the show that night at The German House and joined the crowd of a wide age variety, many of them appearing to have musical talents themselves as they understood the “musical jokes” being thrown around on stage. Wooten brought with him quite the all-star team including bassists Steve Bailey and Anthony Wellington. The one thing that stuck out most was how much fun they were having, and this allowed the crowd to have fun with it too, as they would yell out things like, “sing it girl!” to lead singer Krystal Peterson. It was definitely a very relaxed atmosphere, where the musicians could showcase their talent but have quite the ball with it too.
It was Thanksgiving Eve and we piled into the semi-heated tent at the back of Abilene Bar & Lounge for Thunder Body’s CD release show of Radioactive. It was a chilly night but there were enough dancing bodies to heat the room. String lights and paper decorations hanging throughout the tent and pumpkins grown on a farm by bassist, Jeremiah littering the stage made for the perfect atmosphere. Eager fans came to hear new tunes and Thunder Body did not disappoint. Even without having heard some of the songs before they had your feet moving as usual. Thunder Body members Matthew O’Brian (vocals/ drums), Rachel Orke (rhodes, clavinet, melodica, space), Sam Snyder (guitar), Dennis Mariano (guitar/ vocals), Jeremiah Pacheco (bass), and Brian Blatt “Colonel Parmesan” (Science), bring us simple roots reggae/ dub beats with layers of ambient noises seemingly made through sheer magic by Colonel Parmesan, guitar and melodica solos, and interchanging melodies that take it to a whole new level. Each musician has a role, like a puzzle piece that makes a bigger picture when they come together.
The new album brings us more songs that you only have to listen to once to get stuck in your head and twice to sing along to in the car. The simple lyrics, some even seemingly Zen Buddhist simple such as, “Anger is poison/ hatred is toxic” are really relatable and somehow manage to send chills down your back every time you hear them come out of Matt’s mouth. In the last track on the album we get a cacophony of Brian’s “Science” bringing us ambient, metallic, static noises that when combined with the melodica and keys during songs create a sound that is very galactic and very much what sets this band apart from other American roots and dub bands. You know they’re in their own genre, even if you can’t pinpoint exactly what that genre is yet. This is a band that can bring you to your grounded roots and send you into space at the same time. My boyfriend, Jake Martin, turned to me at one point during the show and said, “This band, to me, is definitively Rochester”. I agree with that. Him and I personally bonded over the Thunder Body lyric, “I’m sure in time we’re all gunna be just fine”. I’m really proud of the music scene we have here; bands such as this, Giant Panda, Mosaic Foundation, AudioInFlux, Buddhahood, and the recently disbanded RootsCollider formed here and joined in on a mission to shed light through our endless winters and grey skies- or so it seems.
This night we got a mix of a lot of the new with some of the old so fans could sing along, and it flowed very seamlessly from new tracks to old so you knew you were still in Thunder Body territory. Guitarist, Rick Snell opened up the night and DJ Muerto Motora was spinning the dance tracks in between sets causing everyone to grab a partner and salsa dance, or swing dance or just groove. This was the kind of show where you could turn to the stranger next to you and smile, and the band members could look out in the crowd and see you smiling and smile, and it’s like everybody is in on a secret, and that secret is love for music, love for each other and love for this moment.
Well-known American bass player, Victor Wooten is going to be doing a free clinic here in Rochester, NY at the House of Guitars tomorrow (Nov. 13th). He teaches us not only music lessons, but life lessons through his novel The Music Lesson, his clinics and summer camps, and if you listen carefully it’s in the way he plays his music. Both of his new albums, “Words and Tones” and the instrumental version, “Sword and Stone” will be available for purchase and photography and autographing is permitted at the event. He will also be performing a show at The German House later that night.
I had the privilege of speaking with Wooten before these events, and knowing how his teachings and messages have helped me despite my lack of musicianship, I wanted to bring this idea to light: that music is a catalyst for the life lessons he shows all of us. He reinforced his values of being honest in his performance on stage, cherishing the relationships that matter with family and loved ones, and sharing the secrets he’s learned that allow anyone to get in touch with the soul in their work, and find their true voice.
It is so refreshing to see an artist who is a five-time Grammy award winner, and who has received titles such as “The Bass Player of the Year” by Bass Player magazine, and who is still so humble and grateful and who shares concerns about the state of the music industry as a whole, and seeks to spread awareness to have us ask ourselves, “what do we value most”?
Sara Tiberio: So I know you grew up in a very musical family, and I did as well but I didn’t really get the musical talent per say, it just wasn’t my calling. Yet somehow I still have a very strong connection to music, and everything I do still relates to music, whether it’s photographing concerts, interviewing musicians, or booking shows. I just feel that growing up with musicians allowed me to have an appreciation for and really a deep sense of loyalty to music. So do you think it’s possible that if we don’t play music we can still have a deep relationship with it?
Victor Wooten: Well you are proof of that absolutely, some of the most musical people I know don’t play an instrument, and actually a lot of times not having an instrument allows you to be more musical because a lot of musicians get stuck because of the music instrument, but my parents, aunts uncles, they knew so much about music and they would tell us about music, those were the most musically inspiring. And yes, you are absolutely proof of that.
Sara: Now I know you wrote your novel The Music Lesson quite a while ago now, but it’s messages are still relevant, and it’s not solely about music lessons but about life lessons. So I want to know can anyone have a relationship with their craft the way you explain one can form a relationship with music? How can we apply it to our own lives no matter what we are doing? How can we feel the groove in painting or photography or cooking?
Victor: Right, the beautiful thing that people have offered me with this book is they have come up to me and explained to me or written to me about how they use that 1 through 10 step list. The first person that did it was a master gardener and she teaches part of the nature department at my Music & Nature camps, you know notes articulation, space, she went through everything and showed me how she used it in gardening. And I was hoping to see that because I understood it but I wanted to make sure others did. In my mind I am talking about life but I am calling it music, because music is a safe way for me to talk about anything, I can address topics of religion, politics, racism, equality, inequality, but if I call it music that’s still safe. That’s what I do.
Sara: I’ve heard you are writing a sequel to your novel The Music Lesson, can you talk about that?
Victor: Sure. Very true- I am. It pretty much starts where the last book left off, but the idea in the first book is you find out that music is sick, people don’t feel me anymore, I have a more intimate relationship with computers than humans, so in the next book (it doesn’t have a title yet) music is not only sick but dying and literally disappearing from the world and what will that look like? As if music were an actual species like an animal that becomes extinct, and as science shows it doesn’t come back, so what will the world look like? So I am using real life situations, but like the first book in a fictional context, like the fact that CD and record stores have disappeared, major record labors are disappearing, and also some smaller things that go unnoticed. And where I listed 10 elements of music, well look at the possibility of those elements disappearing, like most of what you here on the radio is pitch corrected and everything is time corrected, everything is also compressed, and what compression does is make all the volume levels one level. That’s why TV commercials sound louder, it’s to grab your attention. On the radio everything is produced the same way, so we’re not even getting all the dynamic levels. So are we killing music little by little, element by element, and if so what’s going to happen, what can we do?
Sara: Yeah I can relate to that as a photographer, we are losing film, and the aspect of manually operating a camera and the hands on connection to what you are doing, like developing an image in the darkroom.
Victor: Right. That specialness that used to be called photo has begun to disappear. Now everything can be done on the computer, so I can take a horrible picture and fix it later, it’s like music, it’s like families, the family unit is not what it used to be so again we’re going to look at it and call it music.
Sara: My brother Ben, a bassist, who had the privilege of having a short music lesson with you in Miami tells me that playing seems to come as easy to you as talking. Can you talk a little bit about your process of music or songwriting? Does it come as naturally as playing does for you?
Victor: Yeah it pretty much does come not as naturally as talking but close, and it’s because of how I learned to play music, and when I learned to play music, I learned to play music as I was learning to speak English, and very much in the same way, what I mean by that is when you learn a language there are a few things we do that are so natural, that for example when you are a child learning to speak English no one teaches it to you, your just talking, but you’re allowed to talk back, even though you make mistakes no one corrects you, if you say a word incorrectly over and over your parents learn it your way, they say it your way, they don’t say blanket its blankie. The people you talk to aren’t babies, you’re talking to people much bigger than you. You’re never made to practice, and you’re never told what to say, so how could you ever get good at it? And you get good at it quick because that process is very natural, and any child that grows up in a musical family, will be good and will be called a child prodigy, and actually that is the recipe for a child prodigy, not just in music, but circus acts, gymnastics, whatever it is, when that child approaches that task with that criteria that person will be good at it naturally, it will be as if they were born doing it.
Now lemme say this- there are some people who are just born with it, and to me those are the true child prodigies, born with a gift of painting or a gift of knowledge. I just was born into a musical family and was allowed to follow that natural process that works for all of us, I don’t believe I was born with a special gift to play music no more than anyone else.
Sara: Are there any particular artists past or present that you really would have liked or would like the opportunity to perform with?
Victor: Sure. There are many, my brother Rudy who plays sax is now past, he died a few years ago, so he’s one for sure. I’ve played with him before but I’d love the chance to play with him some more. The same with my kids- I’m able to play with them more and more as they get older and better. I could name musicians people know like Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, Stevie Wonder… but I don’t sit around thinking about that. I’m grateful for the people I have played with and if those opportunities came along I know I would appreciate it.
Sara: So your kids are all very musical as well?
Victor: They didn’t really have a choice. (laughter) But yes they are.
Sara: Yeah growing up with my father as a music teacher, that was my one requirement as well- I had to play a music instrument. Even if it wasn’t my career, and I did benefit from it even though it isn’t the path I am taking.
Victor: I can’t say they’ll (kids) follow it as a career either but I can guarantee they’ll play and enjoy it for their whole lives.
Sara: What is your favorite emotion to play? When I did play, mine was sadness, because I could play more freely and I always felt better after, as if it was a healing experience.
Victor: Yeah, well this is not really considered an emotion but I’m going to say it anyway: truth or honesty, because that’s what I’m being on stage even when I’m playing sadness and I’m not sad, that’s still an honest emotion that I know and I can feel, and my own goal on stage is to really be who I am even when I have to call upon those emotions when they’re not really there.
Sara: Yeah I agree, and I think the crowd can feel it when a musician is being honest, even if it’s on a subconscious level, and it affects the performance.
Victor: If I were to just play happiness all night we would lose the effectiveness. It’s like a movie. There’s contrast, an action movie can’t just be action the whole time, and I view my musical concert the same way.
Sara: So you’re going to be doing a clinic at the House of Guitars here in Rochester tomorrow. What can fans expect who have never been to your clinics before and what should they bring with them?
Victor: They should bring a notepad. Yeah, anytime you go someplace to learn be prepared to take notes, and for me my thought is that if you don’t you’re really not that serious about it. People tend to expect a different approach to music, they’ll probably hear things about music that they haven’t heard before, and that may contradict what they’ve always thought.
I just want to add that we do have two brand new records, one is a vocal record entitled “Words and Tones”, if you take the “s” and flip it around it becomes the title of the instrumental version “Sword and Stone” we will have those available tomorrow for purchase.
Sara: Thank you very much for your time and I will see you tomorrow at the clinic.
UpstateLIVE Archive - October 2011-March 2013 