Victor Wooten

The youngest of five musically inclined brothers, Victor Wooten took up the bass guitar at age three, influenced by jazz fusion stars Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke. After recording an album with the Wooten Brothers Band for Arista Records in 1985, he moved to Nashville, where he joined bluegrass banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck to form the Flecktones. The group's resulting new hybrid, fusion-bluegrass, became popular both within the jazz, bluegrass, and jam-band rock scenes. After leaving Fleck, Wooten expanded his palette to incorporate world music, funk, smooth jazz, bebop, and pop, becoming universally recognized as one the most creative and technically accomplished electric bass players of his generation.