World-renowned bassists Steve Bailey and Victor Wooten to share music, perspective, and hope with Grand Strand audience
CCU's own Steve Bailey, a prolific artist widely known for his pioneering work on the six-string fretless bass, will perform with five-time Grammy award-winning bassist Victor Wooten on Thursday, July 16, at noon on Edwards Live.
Bailey, artist-in-residence in the CCU Department of Music and chair of the bass department at Berklee College of Music in Boston, will highlight the release of his new album "Carolina," a compilation of 17 duets between Bailey and prominent artists including Willie Nelson, Bakithi Kumalo, Becca Stevens, and Wooten. Wooten, visiting scholar in performance studies at Berklee, will play from his 2018 album, "Trypnotix."
Edwards Live is a CCU online initiative created in Spring 2020 to provide artistic programming to the Grand Strand community during an unpredictable time with a predictable shortage of live entertainment. It's been serving weekly doses of hope and beauty for three months, each week bringing multiple events featuring art, music, theater, lectures, and discussion to unite viewers via social media channels for shared moments of inspiration and reward.
Bailey's virtual performance will include works from "Carolina" in addition to solo pieces and duets from Bailey and Wooten, with Bailey performing from Myrtle Beach and Wooten from Nashville. Following the performance, Matt White, CCU assistant professor of trumpet and coordinator of ensembles and commercial music and jazz in the Department of Music, will join Bailey and Wooten for a question/answer session and discussion.
For Wooten and Bailey, who have appeared on the Wheelwright stage for numerous gigs in the past, the time is right to connect online with a CCU-based audience.
"Given our long relationship with the Grand Strand, and Coastal being the place where I played my first notes of jazz music, which led to my whole career, I will always relish the idea of coming back and being a part of anything CCU-related," said Bailey. "It's always just fun, and Victor loves it as well."
In an initiative similar to Edwards Live, Bailey has been working with Wooten to produce weekly webinars featuring music, discussion, and interaction among musicians who have been left without gigs, classes, and, in some cases, jobs in the wake of COVID-19.
"We've gotten a worldwide following with thousands of people watching," said Bailey. "Everybody's just hanging out. The webinars are all free-nobody's getting paid to do them-but people are just clinging to each other. It's really bizarre; people before who were hard to get on the phone are now sitting down for three hours and pouring their hearts out about what they're going through."
The pandemic, Bailey said, has transformed competition into collaboration. "It's fun to get together and share art with people who would otherwise be our competitors. Now, we're all locked together and getting through it together and sharing information," Bailey said.
Each week, the webinars elicit a great deal of post-event response.
"I get hundreds of emails every week, and there's a big common denominator in all of them: People share their thanks, say it has been a little light or ray of hope, and provide reassurance that it's not just them going through this-it's all of us."
Rather than the standard 45-minute time frame, this Edwards Live event will span 90 minutes to ensure time for the performance and a fully developed discussion among Bailey, Wooten, White, and musicians and audience members in attendance. Bailey's public weekly webinar will follow 30 minutes later, at 2 p.m., for those who wish to extend the experience.
To attend the Edwards Live event featuring Bailey and Wooten, visit the Cultural Arts at Coastal Carolina University Facebook page or the Edwards College YouTube page.
Additional information:
CCU's Edwards College launches Edwards Live to offer virtual cultural and educational experiences