“The word on the street was, ‘No-one could be playing that without overdubs.’ Well, the secret’s out. I’ve come clean”: Still copping Victor Wooten’s 20-year-old bass licks? You’d better take another look

Anthony Wellington, Victor Wooten and MC Divinity during Victor Wooten Promotes His New CD "Soul Circus" and Fodera Bass - November 6, 2005 at O-East in Tokyo, Japan. .

Anyone who’s followed Victor Wooten's career path is certainly accustomed to surprises by now. There were the technical fireworks, acrobatic backflips, and bass spins of early Béla Fleck & the Flecktones shows; the jarring reality of his overdub-free state-of-the-instrument solo debut, A Show of Hands; the genre-crossing spectacle of his solo tours; the blindfolded-walk-through-the-woods exercises at his Bass/Nature camps; and the refreshing musicality of a Bass Extremes tour with Steve Bailey and Oteil Burbridge. 

And then there are Wooten's gut-check gigs as a sideman: he has barnstormed with Mike Stern's hardcore jazz unit, fingered an unlined fretless while reading Jaco charts with the Word Of Mouth Big Band, and gone phrase-for-phrase with such post-fuze shredders as Scott Henderson and Greg Howe.