Wooten Brothers Come to Portland: A Review of Their Dynamic Live Performance in Funk, Jazz, and R&B
On an icy and cold night, the room is filled with fans ready for SWEAT!
Let’s start with the who. The Wooten Brothers have been around for a long time, without a doubt, but even though I was aware of two of the brothers, I had no idea of the full scope of the band or the breadth and depth of their work. They’ve managed to fly under the radar of a lot of people for a long time. So let’s start with the players:
Regi Wooten, the oldest brother, plays guitar. Roy, the next younger, is a drummer and also goes by the name Futureman. Joseph, the next younger, plays keyboards. Victor, the youngest, plays bass. The brothers continue to honor their middle brother, Rudy, who passed away at 51 in 2010 and was known for playing two saxophones at once! Victor and Futureman have played with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones for years. Joseph Wooten was Steve Miller’s keyboard player for a few decades and has production credits on over 35 albums.
From the band website, you quickly learn …“the young brothers were often sought after to share the stage with the likes of Curtis Mayfield, WAR, The Temptations, Ramsey Lewis, Stephanie Mills, Franky Beverly and Maze, Mongo Santamaria, and others. In 1972, the Wooten Brothers were hired as the opening band for Curtis Mayfield‘s hugely successful Superfly Tour. The eldest Wooten Brother, Regi, was fourteen years old. Victor was only five.”
Now that you know who, the next topic is WHAT. The brothers play funk, soul, jazz, and R&B, a heady mix that stretches back decades and reaches into the future.
I’d seen both Victor and Roy play as part of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones at least once, so when my wife directed me to purchase the best seats I could get on the opening of ticket sales, I knew we were in for a treat. And it works: concerts are always better up front! We ended up in the third row at Revolution Hall in Portland, a venue I was unfamiliar with. We managed to make it there the second week of January, a week when the Willamette Valley was covered in snow and ice. We even debated whether it was a good idea to drive 45 miles to the show. But I knew the freeways would be clear, and I’ve driven in much worse snow hundreds of times in my life (I’m a skier and have to frequently navigate snowy mountain pass roads), so we confidently headed out. Okay, at least one of us was confident!
The best part of driving through ice and snow: the name of the tour is SWEAT! Which is the name of the Wooten Brother’s latest single.
The Wooten Brothers have been playing onstage together for decades, and the camaraderie and tightness were evident from the start. I wasn’t familiar with their music, but that was not a problem: I’ll listen to any band that is damn good at what they do, and soaking up a menu of funk, jazz, rhythm and blues, and more is, to me, a fine, fine way to spend a couple of hours.
Just so you get the idea, I’m embedding a couple of videos, including one I found on YouTube of them doing a wild piece of their set that was very similar to what we saw. I’ll also drop in a short piece of the concert we attended, and how about, to top if off, a handful of photos.
Live music rules. Go see a band!
The band’s energy was palpable, yet the comfort with which they played with each other showed the result of decades of playing together. Some of the highlights of the night included a touching story of how a cassette of demos the band did in the 70s resurfaced, and damn, they played a few of them, and for a moment, I thought I was watching Midnight Special’s highlight of a cool soul and funk band. Or maybe an alternate universe version of the Jackson 5 as refracted through the Wooten Brothers' lens. The songs were of a time and place, but they livened up the place with an energy all their own. Throughout the night, each member took the spotlight. The set stretched to nearly two hours, including their new single, “Sweat,” and a handful of bits and pieces of covers, including James Brown’s “Sex Machine,” Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour,” and even a mid-song run-up of the intro to Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.”
Wonderful night through and through. As I was browsing Victor Wooten’s Facebook page, I ran across a local review of the concert on the website Live for Live Music, where the writer James Sissler gives a more thorough breakdown of the show here.
We stuck around after the show so my wife could buy some records and have the band sign them. Seeing any band do a meet-snd-greet and spend time with their fans is rare, so that was great to see!