Victor Wooten perfects bass playing

Encircled in deep blue light, his left hand flies manically across the fret board while the right hammers out a relentless groove. Eyes closed, body swaying and jerking, cosmic forces flow through his body, taking auditory form with every thump and pop of his bass guitar. Every few moments, a blast of energy morphs his hands into a smear of light laying down a riff fast enough to win the Indy 500. The crowd roars in approval as even his fellow band members watch in amazement.\nVictor Wooten doesn't just play the bass; he perfects it.\nWooten brought his innovative approach to bass guitar to a packed Axis Nightclub Wednesday, performing a mix of funk, jazz and R&B. His distinct style combines percussive elements of slap with the comping of a piano or guitar, punctuating solos with irregularly spaced chords.\nWooten's creativity reached new heights while playing an extended solo in which he gradually tuned-down his bass until the strings were so loose they lost all tonality. At this point, his bass became a strictly percussive instrument, and he pounded a steady beat for a few minutes while gradually tuning it back to normal without a single break in tempo.\nThroughout the three-and-a-half-hour performance, an outstanding rhythm section backed Wooten. His brothers Regi and Joe Wooten were on guitar and keyboards, respectively. Drummer J.D. Blair added another dimension of intensity while opening act and backup vocalist MC Divinity loaned her steady and persistent rhymes to a number of the songs.\nHalfway through the show, Wooten turned the stage over to Regi for a solo. It started subtly, with Regi moderately fretting arpeggiations up and down the neck of his aged Fender Stratocaster. Gradually the tempo increased until his hands sped frantically, the individual notes melting into a blur of sound. Without so much as a flinch, he shifted into slap, thumping the strings in frenzy and creating funky riffs like some sort of mad scientist.\nAs his intensity increased, so did the crowd's. Shouts and cheers increased in volume until finally his pace slowed slightly as rest of the band returned to the stage and broke into a verse of James Brown's "Sex Machine." \nUpon completing the James Brown classic, Regi burst into Jimi Hendrix's rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner," which gave way to a 20-minute rock medley including Hendrix's "Purple Haze" and Black Sabbath's "Iron Man." \nThe show finished with Wooten's "Me and My Bass Guitar," featuring a bass solo for which the word "insane" would be an understatement. Wooten slapped as if possessed, halting occasionally to swing his bass by the strap down behind his back and up over his shoulder. Midway through his solo, he switched to a bass with a four-foot bungee cord attached to the head by which he proceeded to slam the bass strings -- first onto the stage, then he pulled it up by the cord and swung it wildly around the stage.\nThe concert was a welcomed break from mediocre local bands, screaming metal bands and typically boring jam bands; Wooten's musical vision was well received by the crowd. The tour will continue for another 10 days, after which Wooten will meet up with another band, The Flecktones (a Grammy winning group that combines jazz with world music, led by banjo-virtuoso Béla Fleck) for a world tour. Wooten's music can be heard on his four solo albums and eight Flecktones albums.