Victor Wooten, Soul Circus (Vanguard, 2005)

It's been a long time since I've heard such a riot of unadulterated joy rendered in music. Enter bassist Victor Wooten's Soul Circus. If the visual feast of the inset layout doesn't win you over with its circus-freakish "bass oddity collection" (Egyptian mummy bass complete with tiny sarcophagus, archangel base with feathered wings, and the formaldehyde-filled mason jars containing Siamese bass, alien bass and pickled human bass), then perhaps the folklore will. The first page of the accompanying booklet asks and answers the question, "How can Victor Wooten play so many notes so quickly?" The cover shot is of Wooten himself, one hand flashing a "thumbs-up", while another fiddles with the knobs of his bass, and another poses on the strings...and another, and another and another. Eight arms in all. According to the liner notes, Wooten had "decided that 2005 was the year to tell the truth."

The inset's funkiness and sense of humor set the tone for the whole disc. If the folklore and the visuals don't get your attention, the music will. This is a man who won the "Bass Player of the Year" award from Bass Player Magazine three years running. Some may recognize his outstanding slap and pop style from his stint with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, but his solo discography includes, respectively A Show of Hands, What Did He Say?, Yin Yang, Live in America and now Soul Circus. Individual tracks run the gamut of the sounds of hard classic funk to the most brilliant use of cell-phone-as-instrument I've ever heard. The incredible opening track, "Victa," makes me want to grab my knee socks and roller skates, put my hair up in ponytails -- you know, those '70s ones with no bangs and big plastic bobbles? -- and brush up on my freestyle rink techniques under the disco lights. It's not even a surprise to see Bootsy Collins listed as guest vocalist on "Victa," so organically appropriate it seems. In fact, Wooten manages to channel Funkadelic and Parliament throughout most of the collection. "Victa," "Bass Tribute," "Prayer," "Natives," and "Stay" all bring on the funk, in the most complimentary sense of the word. Here is some of the best dance music I've heard in a long time, with heavy slap base and a huge variety of tight, talented vocals. The lyrics are understandable, singable -- no small feat at the frenetic pace appropriate for accompaniment to Wooten's speed-playing. Maybe he does have those eight arms, after all.

The slower, softer, more R&B- and Soul-influenced tracks, "Can't Hide Love," "On and On," "Soul Circus" and "Ari's Eyes" are as full of talent as the rest of the collection, but they aren't the ones I'll be loading into my music library. They don't reach out with the strength or immediacy of the others.

The tracks I found most intriguing were the ones with the unusual use of sounds not often found in the pop-funk genre: the use of Native American chant in "Natives," the sitar bass on "Back to India," the militaristic-sounding drums on "Higher Law," and especially the cell phone tones on "Cell Phone." I can't hear that last one often enough. Sheer brilliance, all of it, and rendered with innovation, flawless execution, and a very modern sense of irreverence and good humor.

[Camille Alexa]