Victor Wooten

Electric bassist Victor Wooten seems to suffer from attention deficit disorder. Or so you'd think as you watch him juggling basses, snatching from a gleaming row of four-strings as the moment strikes him. His sound runs the gamut from jazz and bluegrass to rock and funk to classical and rap. Wooten is going solo this year, coming off a year of sold-out tours with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (of which he is a founder) and the Bass Extremes. Having played since he was three, Wooten is a master of the flying fingerwork that produces guitar-like solos -- a technique that has garnered two Grammy awards and multiple Bass Player of the Year accolades for him. His latest release, Soul Circus, ruminates on Native Americans, India and cell phones. For Wooten, that variety is what music is about: the spice of life.