JAZZ AND FUSION

01 VICTOR WOOTEN

Record company owner, songwriter, producer, book author, magician, acrobat, naturalist... oh, and a wonderful bassist, too. Victor Lemonte Wooten has certainly packed in the adventures in a life that began on September 11, 1964 in Mountain Home, Idaho.

He wasn’t the first bassist in the Wooten family, though: That honor went to his brother Regi, who subsequently taught two-year-old Victor the basics. Four years later, Victor was performing with the Wooten Brothers Band. Later, Victor met banjo player Béla Fleck, and by 1988 the pair, enhanced by Victor’s brother Roy and Howard Levy on piano and harmonica, formed Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. The band continues to ride rampantly across genres—always inventive, always playful. Victor plays a bit of cello in the band now and again, having learned in school, but generally