Victor Wooten and Steve Bailey’s BASS EXTREMES Celebrate 30th Anniversary With S’Low Down

BASS EXTREMES Features Guest Appearances from Ron Carter, Bootsy Collins, Marcus Miller, Oteil Burbridge, Justin Chancellor, Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, John Patitucci, Mike Stern, Billy Sheehan, among others…

In celebration of their 30th anniversary, Bass Extremes—Victor Wooten and Steve Bailey featuring Gregg Bissonette – announce the August 26 release of S’Low Down. 

Today, they share the album’s first single, “Home Bass,” featuring Ron Carter, Marcus Miller, and John Patitucci.

On June 11, the trio will perform a free, live concert from Berklee College of Music at 7pm ET; click here to attend the event.

Recording for S’Low Down, began just before the pandemic at Steve Bailey’s Myrtle Beach, South Carolina studio and continued throughout the next 18 months. In typical Bass Extremes fashion, the music was composed in the studio with Bailey and Wooten each functioning as musician, composer, sound engineer, and producer. The duo utilized conventional and unorthodox approaches, which included spontaneous improvisations as well as melodies and harmonies built upon Gregg’s improvised drum tracks.

The 10-track album, their third and first in two decades, once again expands the trio’s format, featuring an array of top bassists and musicians, including Ron Carter, Bootsy Collins, Marcus Miller, Oteil Burbridge, Justin Chancellor, Linda Oh, Edgar Meyer, John Patitucci, Billy Sheehan, Joe Dart, and more. It also includes some unexpected collaborations, including banjoist Béla Fleck on bass banjo, jazz guitarist Mike Stern on 6-string bass, Howard Levy on bass harmonica, and Jeff Coffin on both bass clarinet and bass flute.

A key to the record’s concept lies in the album’s title. The first of dual meanings is clear, this album is about the ‘Low Down of the bass, while the “S’Low Down” offers deeper implications. “As you get older and wiser you learn how to say more with less,” explains Wooten. “We tell our students that a lot, ‘slow down.” Bailey concurs adding, “For most musicians, myself included, you spend the first part of your career proving what you can play and trying to innovate and get it out there. What this album typifies for me is, been there, done that. Now it’s about what’s the least amount we can bring to the music and still make it work. How we can move slower and actually go faster.”

Formed in 1992, Bass Extremes was an unprecedented morph of a musical album, instructional method, and concert video, all rolled into one. Pushing the “extremes” of what can be done on a 4-string fretted, and 6-string fretless bass, this cutting-edge project changed the trajectory of bass and its community with the idea that two bass players and a drummer IS the band.

With two ground-breaking albums—CookBook (1998) and Just Add Water (2001) – to their credit, their original Bass Extremes became one of the best-selling bass instructional products of all time and launched a cottage industry that allowed the two to double as performers and educators at shows, industry events, clinics, universities, concert worldwide, and the creation of their popular and perpetual ‘Bass Camps.”

Over two decades, Bass Extremes has performed occasional tours and events “filled with joyful grooves and hand-faster-than-the-eye dexterity” (Jazz Weekly). In support of S’Low Down, they will tour for the next year with the next leg being a 17-date U.S. tour beginning August 19, at QC Jam Session Festival in Charlotte, NC. A complete list of dates is below and are on sale here.

BASS EXTREMES: ON TOUR
August 19 – QC Jam Session Festival – Charlotte, NC
August 20 – Plaza Theatre – Glasgow, KY
August 21 – SPACE – Evanston, IL
August 22 – Door Community Auditorium – Fish Creek, WI
August 24 – Buskirk Chumley Theater – Bloomington, IN
August 25 – Music Box Supper Club – Cleveland, OH
August 26 – The Warehouse – Fairfield, CT
August 27 – Sony Hall – New York, NY
August 28 – The Egg – Lewis A. Sawyer Theatre – Albany, NY
August 30 – State Theatre of State College – State College, PA
August 31 – Center for the Arts of Homer – Homer, NY
September 1 – Sherman Theater – Stroudsburg, PA
September 2 – Flying Monkey – Plymouth, NH
September 3 – Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club – Portsmouth, NH
September 4 – Higher Ground Ballroom – South Burlington, VT
September 6 – Woodlands Tavern – Columbus, OH

S’Low Down Tracklisting with Special Guests
1. Ready, Set , Slow (Bootsy Collins)
2. Home Bass (Marcus Miller, Ron Carter, John Patitucci)
3. The Chrome Addict (Oteil Burbridge, Howard Levy, Béla Fleck, Jeff Coffin)
4. Mess That Up? (Matt White, Mike Stern)
5. Ping Pong (Edgar Meyer)
6. Oh Tell Billy (Oteil Burbridge, Billy Sheehan)
7. Patchwork (John Patitucci)
8. Silent Night In Tunisia (John Patitucci, Joe Dart, Whit Browne, Mike Pope)
9. Justin Time (Justin Chancellor)
10. S’Low Down