Arts

Man who brought berklee musicians

berklee

Safaricom CEO and International Jazz Founder, Bob Collymore with Victor Wooten (left) and Steve Bailey. PHOTO | COURTESY.

When a retired head teacher stood on the stage in the middle of a performance by five-time Grammy Award winner Victor Wooten and declared, “I am the reason why this is happening” my curiosity was piqued.

Teaching job

He was a high school teacher in Western Kenya in 1978 when an American showed up and asked for a teaching job.

The American had made a trip to Africa to find himself and the teacher helped get him a chance to teach Math and Physics.

After a stint teaching in rural Kenya, the American went back home to do his Master’s degree and 40 years later, he is now the third president of the world famous Berklee College of Music.

Francis Lutomia was the teacher 40 years ago while Roger Brown was the American looking to find himself.

Comes back

Four decades later, this unlikely relationship has birthed an even more unlikely relationship between Kenya and the Berklee College of Music through Francis Lutomia’s son, Sam.

Francis says Roger gave his son a job at Berklee and in 2011 Sam went on to found the Global Youth Groove (GYG), whose mission is to transform the lives of youth in Kenya through music primarily by a cultural exchange programme involving Berklee students and alumni and Kenyans.

For six years, Global Youth Groove has been doing the exchange programmes and after three years of planning Sam had finally managed to get the hugely in-demand Wooten and Berklee Bass Department chair Steve Bailey to come to Kenya together with several Berklee students and alumni.

Magic happens

At first glance, Wooten dressed in a bright African print shirt—that he was gifted by Kenyan jazz artiste Ricky of Ricky na Marafiki — and spotting dreadlocks covered by a black woolen cap can easily pass for a Jamaican roots reggae musician.

That is until he strums his bass guitar and magic happens. His hand motion is at times fast, at times slow and at times barely noticeable but what is constant is the brilliance of a man at the peak of his skill.

For 50 of his 52 years, Wooten has been playing the bass guitar and seated at the front side row of the Michael Joseph Centre I was blown away by the melodies he coaxes out of his bass guitar.

It was easy to see why Wooten who also teaches at Berklee has been named at number 10 in the Top 10 Bassists of All Time by the influential Rolling Stones magazine.

On his part, Bailey a blonde haired, wiry man who would not be out of place in a country music band run to the stage high fiving all the VIPs sat in the front row and cracked jokes with ease.

He then went on to strum a six string guitar that is the hugest guitar I have ever seen.

Bailey, who is 57, started playing the guitar when he was 12 and the unwieldy instrument was like jelly in his hands. 

Watching him manipulate it to produce delightful sound was like watching a painter produce a masterpiece from scratch.

Wooten and Bailey mastery on the guitars resulted in a sensory experience that was amazing. Imagine two guitars having different animated standpoints on a conversation that covered a variety of issues and you begin to picture the amazing chemistry.