Future Man

Last updated

Future Man
Futureman Zoo Tunes 2007.jpg
Future Man with the Flecktones at the Woodland Park Zoo in 2007.
Background information
Birth nameRoy Wilfred Wooten
Also known asFutche
Born (1957-10-13) October 13, 1957 (age 66)
Hampton, Virginia, United States
Genres Jazz, jazz fusion
Occupation(s)Musician, composer, inventor
Instrument(s) Drumitar, Zendrum, SynthAxe, drums, vocals
Labels

Roy Wilfred Wooten (born October 13, 1957), also known as RoyEl, best known by his stage name Future Man (also written Futureman and known to fans as Futche [1] ), is an American musician, inventor and composer.

Contents

He is best known as a member of jazz and bluegrass quartet Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, along with banjoist Béla Fleck, harmonicist Howard Levy, and Roy's brother, bassist Victor Wooten. His primary instrument is the SynthAxeDrumitar, a guitar synthesizer he customized to play drum and percussion, but he sometimes plays a standard drum kit and other conventional percussion.

Life and career

Born in Hampton, Virginia, Roy Wooten was raised in a military family and therefore traveled frequently. He is the second of five sons born to Dorothy and Elijah "Pete" Wooten. He graduated from Denbigh High School in Newport News, Virginia in 1975. He briefly attended music classes at Norfolk State University upon graduating from high school, and then embarked on his professional music career. He and his brothers moved to Nashville, Tennessee in the mid-1980s.

All of his brothers are musicians. The oldest, Regi, is a guitarist and teacher in Nashville. Roy Wooten, Regi, and his three younger brothers, Rudy (1959–2010) (saxophone), Joseph (keyboards), and Victor (bass guitar), performed as The Wooten Brothers in numerous musical venues in the Hampton Roads area of southeast Virginia during the 1970s.

Wooten is a six-time Grammy Award-winning performer with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. [2] For the Flecktones, he plays the Drumitar, a novel electronic instrument of his own invention, and occasionally performs vocals as well.

More recently, Wooten has developed a new electronic instrument called the RoyEl, [3] which resembles a piano but plays notes not found in the traditional western music scales. This instrument is based on the periodic table of elements [3] and the golden ratio.

In 2005, Wooten pleaded guilty to income tax evasion, after having been indicted on charges in 2001 that he had not filed or paid taxes between 1995 and 1998. [4] He was affiliated with the Washitaw Nation, and before his guilty plea had been judged possibly incapable of assisting in his own defense after filing incomprehensible sovereign citizen paperwork with the court. [5]

Solo work

Like the other members of the Flecktones, Wooten has worked on various solo projects during his time off from the band. On his own Wooten often dresses up as a pirate and uses the pseudonym "RoyEl", also the name he gave to the keyboard instrument he invented. Wooten's solo albums are experimental and incorporate diverse musical genres and concepts. On Evolution de la Musique, for example, he infuses classical music with jazz elements, especially improvisation, and spoken word.

Among extra-musical influences, Wooten describes Pythagorean numerology and Vedic mathematics as influencing his compositions. [6]

Wooten's solo works are:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Béla Fleck and the Flecktones</span> American jazz-bluegrass band

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is an American jazz fusion band that is known for its eclectic style and instrumentation, combining jazz improvisation with progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Béla Fleck</span> American banjo player

Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. An acclaimed virtuoso, he is an innovative and technically proficient pioneer and ambassador of the banjo, playing music from bluegrass, jazz, classical, rock and various world music genres. He is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Fleck has won 17 Grammy Awards and been nominated 39 times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor Wooten</span> American bassist (born 1964)

Victor Lemonte Wooten is an American bassist, songwriter, and record producer. He has been the bassist for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones since the group's formation in 1988 and a member of the band SMV with two other bassists, Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller. From 2017 to 2019 he recorded as the bassist for the metal band Nitro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SynthAxe</span> Electronic music instrument that emulates the layout of a guitar

The SynthAxe is a fretted, guitar-like MIDI controller, created by Bill Aitken, Mike Dixon, and Tony Sedivy and manufactured in England in 1985. It is a musical instrument that uses electronic synthesizers to produce sound and is controlled through the use of an arm resembling the neck of a guitar in form and in use. Its name comes from the words synthesizer and axe, a slang term meaning a guitar in rock music. The system was developed as a joint venture funded by Richard Branson's Virgin Group.

<i>Béla Fleck and the Flecktones</i> (album) 1990 studio album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is the first album by the band of the same name, released in 1990. It reached number 17 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. At the Grammy Awards of 1997, a live version of "The Sinister Minister", a track from the album, won the Best Pop Instrumental Performance award.

<i>Flight of the Cosmic Hippo</i> 1991 studio album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Flight of the Cosmic Hippo is the second album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, released in 1991. It reached number 1 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. The album title came from an audience member who suggested "Flight of the Codeine Hippo"; the band changed "codeine" to "cosmic".

<i>UFO Tofu</i> 1992 studio album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

UFO Tofu is the third album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, released in 1992. The title is a palindrome, which is also a musical theme in the title track; the idea originated with the musician Baby Gramps.

<i>Three Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest</i> 1993 studio album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the fourth album released by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, released in 1993. It is the band's only release as a trio, after the departure of Howard Levy but before the arrival of Jeff Coffin.

<i>Live Art</i> 1996 live album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Live Art is the fifth album released by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and their first non-studio album. It was recorded live at various concerts between 1992 and 1996 and features ten guest musicians.

<i>Left of Cool</i> 1998 studio album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Left of Cool is the fifth studio album released by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, released in 1998.

<i>Live at the Quick</i> 2002 live album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Live at the Quick is the ninth album released by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and their second live album. It was recorded live at the Quick Center For The Arts in Fairfield, Connecticut in 2000.

<i>Outbound</i> (Béla Fleck and the Flecktones album) 2000 studio album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Outbound is the eighth album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, released in 2000. It is the band's first album on the Sony/Columbia label. The album won Best Contemporary Jazz Album at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards.

<i>Little Worlds</i> Album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Little Worlds is the tenth album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, released in 2003. The album was released as a 3-disc set. Ten tracks from the set were also released on a single disc called Ten from Little Worlds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zendrum</span>

A Zendrum is a hand-crafted MIDI controller that is used as a percussion instrument. The Zendrum was influenced by the "Drumitar," invented by Future Man. There are several Zendrum models that are well-suited for live performances: the Z1, ZX, EXP, ZAP series, LT and the Mallet Pro series and Melodic Finger. The Zendrum ZX and Z1 can be worn like a guitar and consists of a triangular hardwood body with 24 touch-sensitive round MIDI triggers. The EXP has 29 triggers and additional controls. The Zendrum LT can also be worn with a guitar strap, and has 25 MIDI triggers in a symmetrical layout, which provides an ambidextrous playing surface. The ZAP series is designed more for table top use or on a drum stand, with the ZAP1 having 19 triggers, and the ZAP2 having 25 triggers. The triggers are played by tapping or slapping with the fingers or hands. As a controller, the Zendrum does not make any sound by itself. It uses an electronic interface called MIDI to control synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, sound modules, computers or other electronic drum devices that generates the musical and percussive sounds. The Mallet Pro Series is laid out and played like a traditional mallet instrument, like a marimba. The Mallet Pro series has naturally resonating solid walnut bars as triggers.

#41 is a song by the Dave Matthews Band, featured on their 1996 album Crash.

<i>The Hidden Land</i> 2006 studio album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

The Hidden Land is the eighth studio album and twelfth album overall released by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, released in 2006. It was recorded before the band's year-long hiatus during 2005 and released afterward. The Hidden Land won the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

<i>Jingle All the Way</i> (Béla Fleck and the Flecktones album) Album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Jingle All the Way is a Christmas album and the thirteenth album overall by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Released in 2008 under Rounder, it marks the band's first record since their departure from Columbia. Jingle All the Way reached #1 on the Top Contemporary Jazz chart, the group's first album to do so since 1991. It also won the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Album.

<i>Tales from the Acoustic Planet</i> 1995 studio album by Béla Fleck

Tales From The Acoustic Planet is an album by American banjoist Béla Fleck. It is a jazzy album with roots in bluegrass, where Fleck is joined by bluegrass stars, as well as his jazz friends and Flecktones members. This is also his first solo album since 1988's Places.

<i>Rocket Science</i> (Béla Fleck and the Flecktones album) 2011 studio album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Rocket Science is a studio album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, released in 2011. It reached number 1 on the Billboard Jazz chart and number 36 on the Top Independent Albums chart. The song "Life in Eleven" won Best Instrumental Composition at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Wooten</span> American musician

Joseph Wooten is an American keyboardist, singer, songwriter, author and philanthropist. Since 1993 he has been a member of the Steve Miller Band.

References

  1. Graham, Jefferson (August 6, 2004). "What IS that thing? Futureman explains the Drumitar". USA Today . Deer Valley, Utah: Gannett Company . Retrieved February 15, 2008.
  2. "Flecktones // Bio - Futureman". Flecktones.com. Retrieved January 11, 2018.
  3. 1 2 Templeton, David (April 2, 2001). "Weird Science". Metroactive . Metro Newspapers . Retrieved February 15, 2008.
  4. "Flecktone, once part of 'Empire Washitaw De Dugdahmoundyah,' guilty of tax fraud - Nashville Post". Nashville Post. Retrieved January 11, 2018.
  5. "Take a tax protester position on your return: are you out of your mind?". Roth & Company, P.C. May 5, 2004. Archived from the original on February 28, 2005. Retrieved May 31, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  6. Harden, Trevor (June 24, 2008). "Futureman, Pythagorean Societies and the Big Orgasm". RockOm.net. Archived from the original on February 11, 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-24.