Future Man
Roy Wilfred Wooten (stage name Future Man; born October 13, 1957) is a drummer and member of the jazz quartet Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. The other members are banjoist Béla Fleck, saxophonist Jeff Coffin, and his brother, bassist Victor Wooten.
Future Man is most widely recognized for his unique playing style. He purports to reinvent percussion by using a custom-built drum machine contained in a guitar-shaped body. This instrument, which he calls the "synth-axe drumitar," is held like a guitar and is tapped with the fingers to produce sounds. Some of the sounds are from a common drum kit, like snare drums; others are natural, such as the thunderstorm effects on the song Peace, Be Still from the Flecktones album Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; still others are strange and otherworldly. During live performances, Future Man is often seen operating the synth-axe drumitar with one hand, playing a cymbal with the other, and operating a bass drum with his feet.
Future Man's interest in invention, combined with an inclination toward science and mathematics, has led him to experiment with creating other instruments. The most notable of these is the "RoyEl," a piano-like instrument with an arrangement of keys based on the periodic table. In an attempt to fuse music and nature, Future Man took the atomic number of each chemical element and multiplied them by powers of the golden ratio until obtaining a value corresponding to a frequency within the range of human hearing. This method, of course, leads to pitches that do not fall within the chromatic scale, producing unusual and dissonant sound. The music he has created with his inventions also is influenced by cellist Paul Brantley, with whom he has a musical partnership that he describes as analogous to the collaborations of Miles Davis and Gil Evans.
In 2005, the Flecktones took a year off from touring to pursue solo projects. For his part, Future Man has announced that "we live in the age of the DJ" and is seeking to redefine himself as a "digital jockey" — a fusion of his own ideas about music with the tools of a modern disc jockey.
On May 4, 2005, Future Man pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion. (In November of 2001, Wooten had been indicted on four counts, for the years 1995 through 1998.) He is scheduled to be sentenced on August 8.
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Categories: Musician stubs | Musicians | Drummers | 1957 births