{"id":1408,"date":"2010-09-12T14:40:50","date_gmt":"2010-09-12T21:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=1408"},"modified":"2010-09-12T16:04:38","modified_gmt":"2010-09-12T23:04:38","slug":"medeski-martin-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2010\/09\/medeski-martin-wood\/","title":{"rendered":"Medeski Martin & Wood"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Billy Martin, Chris Wood, John Medeski<\/p><\/div>\n

MEDESKI MARTIN
\n<\/strong>& WOOD<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Improvisation is key\u2014just don\u2019t call \u2019em\u00a0a jam band<\/strong><\/p>\n

In late 2008, jazz-rock trio Medeski Martin & Wood pondered ways to inspire themselves to write new material. They found that inspiration in the animal kingdom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a bird, a certain canary, that comes up with a new song every year, which it never repeats in its lifetime,\u201d explains keyboardist John Medeski. \u201cWe thought, \u2018Yeah, let\u2019s do that, except let\u2019s do it for each season.\u2019 The concept was to write the music, tour behind it, record it and then never play it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result of the group\u2019s experiment is The Radiolarians Series,<\/em> three albums released last year and now compiled as part of a new box set. Titled after a spectacularly beautiful single-cell organism, the discs offer up funky pop grooves, Caribbean-flavored jazz and luscious atmospheric pieces. Medeski insists the music, which despite its many facets sounds cohesive, was created without regard to how the final product would fit together. \u201cThere\u2019s no logic to anything we do,\u201d he says. \u201cAny logic or analysis comes after the music is finished.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unique project is just the latest adventure for a band that has always approached its music in an unconventional fashion. Formed in 1991, the trio, which also includes drummer Billy Martin and bass player Chris Wood, embraced onstage improvisation. Medeski likens the group\u2019s exploratory process to the coordinated play of a finely tuned basketball team. \u201cEach of us knows where the other is going to be as we work our way down the court,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s also like keeping a ball in the air. You have to keep tipping the ball, and watch where it goes and what it\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, the emphasis on improvisation has led some people to characterize the trio as a so-called \u201cjam band\u201d\u2014a label Medeski vehemently rejects. \u201cA lot of these bands claim to be jamming but it\u2019s just bullshit,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re just rock bands playing music that has some solos in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his view, Medeski Martin & Wood operates in a fresher and more original range of the musical spectrum\u2014one in which innovation trumps easy categorization. \u201cNobody ever asked John Coltrane or Miles Davis or Sun Ra who their influences were,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m not saying we\u2019re on the same level as those guys, I\u2019m just saying that everyone should be searching for their own voice. The extent to which these [Radiolarians Series<\/em>] albums rekindled that voice for us was a real surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Russell Hall<\/p>\n

Jan\/Feb 2010 Issue of\u00a0M Music & Musicians<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEDESKI MARTIN & WOOD Improvisation is key\u2014just don\u2019t call \u2019em\u00a0a jam band In late 2008, jazz-rock trio Medeski Martin & Wood pondered ways to inspire themselves to write new material. They found that inspiration in the animal kingdom. \u201cThere\u2019s a bird, a certain canary, that comes up with a new song every year, which it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[32,759,918,912,10156,920,919],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1446,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions\/1446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}