Anyone familiar with Victor Wooten knows that, for him, music is not so much an art form as it is a sacred, supernatural force with the power to change lives and heal the world. In his work with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and other projects, Wooten has revolutionized the electric bass like few have since the heyday of Jaco Pastorius four decades ago. Though he could surely make a nice living on his bass playing alone, Wooten is what you might call a musical missionary, devoting his life to spreading the gospel of sound, as demonstrated by the Victor Wooten Center for Music and Nature — a sort of holistic music camp that’s not so much about finding a career as finding your true nature — and by his previous books, like 2008’s The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music. The title of Wooten’s latest literary foray, The Spirit of Music: The Lesson Continues, may sound like an instructional book, but it’s actually a fable, in which Wooten and his counterparts do battle against the Phasers, who are trying to eradicate all musical sound from human existence. Wooten will discuss the book with his banjo-playing bandmate Fleck, and despite their positions at the absolute forefront of their respective fields, you’d be hard-pressed to find two more humble, affable and thoughtful human beings. 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 5, via Parnassus Books JACK SILVERMAN
Watch an Author Event With Victor Wooten and Béla Fleck
