The bass guitar and the symphony orchestra may strike some as strange bedfellows.
But it’s not like they’ve never met before. Every now and again, they connect over a concerto on stages typically home to classical musicians. John Patitucci recorded such a piece written for him by Jeff Beal, while Finland’s Lauri Porra, great-grandson of composer Jean Sibelius, composed and played a bass-guitar concerto, and Ramon Vazquez performed one by Alfonso Fuentes, to name just a few examples of a field that’s still small, if growing.
Now Victor Wooten has entered the fray with La Leccion Tres (“Lesson Three”). The Nashville-based bass virtuoso, best known for his work with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, played his ambitious suite in front of a live audience for the first time with the full Boston Symphony Orchestra last October; the four performances followed an earlier livestream concert premiere with the smaller Chicago Sinfonietta.
Read my full review for JazzTimes magazine here.
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