Victor Wooten's use of multiple overdubbed basses on his 1997 solo album What Did He Say? was in direct contrast to the single-bass, no-overdubs approach on his celebrated debut, A Show of Hands. Or was it? “On my first album I tried to recreate the sound of the band on one bass guitar; here my goal was to reproduce that sound with many basses. Actually, the songs sound better with separate parts, because each one is cleaner, clearer, and more focused.”
One compelling example of the Wooten bass orchestra is A Little Buzz, on which he “played” the buzz part using the exposed ends of two guitar cables. “You're always trying to get rid of buzzes when recording, so I came up with the idea of trying to make them groove instead. I wrote the tune the day we recorded it, throwing silly ideas at JD Blair on drums. I'd say, ‘I need a stupid beat, something that starts and stops with lots of angles – not fluid at all.’ And it came together.”
