Medeski Martin & Wood (or MMW) is an American

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...

band formed in 1991, consisting of

John Medeski Anthony John Medeski (born June 28, 1965) is an American jazz keyboard player and composer. Medeski is a veteran of New York's 1990s avant-garde jazz scene and is known popularly as a member of Medeski Martin & Wood. He plays the acoustic piano ...

on keyboards,

Billy Martin Alfred Manuel "Billy" Martin Jr. (May 16, 1928 – December 25, 1989) was an American Major League Baseball second baseman and manager who, in addition to leading other teams, was five times the manager of the New York Yankees. First known ...

on drums, and Chris Wood on bass. The band is influenced by musical traditions including

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

and

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

and is known for an unconventional style sometimes described as "

avant Avant can refer to: People * Avant, part of music production team Bloodshy & Avant * Avant (singer), Myron Avant, an American singer * Clarence Avant, a music executive * Jason Avant, is a US American football player Places * Avant, Oklahoma, ...

groove Groove or Grooves may refer to: Music * Groove (music) * Groove (drumming) * The Groove (band), an Australian rock/pop band of the 1960s * The Groove (Sirius XM), a US radio station * Groove 101.7FM, a former Perth, Australia, radio station ...

". MMW has found moderate mainstream success, often working with guitarist

John Scofield John Scofield (born December 26, 1951) is an American guitarist and composer. His music over a long career has blended jazz, jazz fusion, funk, blues, soul and rock. He first came to mainstream attention as part of the band of Miles Davis; he ...

and touring on the

jam band A jam band is a musical group whose concerts and live albums substantially feature improvisational "jam session, jamming". Typically, jam bands will play variations of pre-existing songs, extending them to musical improvisation, improvise ove ...

circuit.

History

The band members were introduced to each other by jazz drummer Bob Moses, who had performed with Medeski and Wood, and was Martin's instructor. Medeski Martin & Wood's first performances together were at the

Village Gate The Village Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village, New York. Art D'Lugoff opened the club in 1958, on the ground floor and basement of 160 Bleecker Street. The large 1896 Chicago School structu ...

, a popular New York jazz club. Though they started out with a more-or-less straightforward piano-bass-drums jazz setup, the threesome expanded their sound with unusual configurations. Their first album, '' Notes from the Underground'', is a record of their entirely-acoustic era, but Medeski soon added electric piano (outfitted with distortion pedals and other effects), and began switching back and forth among

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...

Clavinet The Clavinet is an electric clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds with rubber pads, each matching one of the keys and respond ...

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which causes a length of magnetic tape to contact a Capstan (tape recorder), capstan, which pulls i ...

and other keyboards. Wood alternated between

stand-up Stand-up comedy is a performance directed to a live audience, where the performer stands on a stage (theatre), stage and delivers humour, humorous and satire, satirical monologues sometimes incorporating physical comedy, physical acts. These ...

and

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

, stuck paper behind his strings for a "snare" effect and occasionally employed a drumstick as a slide. Wood entirely eschewed the electric bass for MMW's first three albums, and still relies heavily on the acoustic upright bass in recordings and during live performances. Their earlier albums reveal a

Hip Hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

influenced updating of classic

soul jazz Soul jazz or funky jazz is a subgenre of jazz that incorporates strong influences from hard bop, blues, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues. Soul jazz is often characterized by organ trios featuring the Hammond organ and small combos including sa ...

sounds, which is the primary theme of their well-known 1996 album, '' Shack-man''. The band received some of their first significant exposure outside of the

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

jazz scene by performing with

Phish Phish is an American rock band formed in Burlington, Vermont, in 1983. The band consists of guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell, all of whom perform vocals, with Anastasio being the ...

at their October 14, 1995 concert, which led to the association of the group as a

. In addition, their performance on

's 1997 album '' A Go Go'' helped to further their exposure. The band collaborated further with Scofield again in 2006, releasing the album '' Out Louder'' under the name Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood. This was the first album released on MMW's own Indirecto Records. From 1998 to 2005, MMW were signed to jazz label

Blue Note Records Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Capitol Music Group. Established in 1939 by History of the Jews in Germany, German-Jewish emigrants Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, it deriv ...

, and showed them delving deeper into dense, electronic funk than their earlier albums, although the band continued to experiment with

free jazz Free jazz, or free form in the early to mid-1970s, is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventi ...

and

free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any general rules, instead following the intuition of its performers. The term can refer to both a technique—employed by any musician in any genre—and as a recognizable genre of ...

both on their albums and in concert. In 2001 MMW performed several songs for the

Red Hot Organization ''Red Hot Organization'' (RHO) is a non-profit, 501(c) 3, international organization with goals to promote diversity through equal access to healthcare through pop culture. Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors ...

's compilation album ''

Red Hot + Indigo Red Hot + Indigo is the 13th entry from the Red Hot AIDS benefit series of compilation albums produced by Paul Heck. It marks the tenth anniversary of the Red Hot Organization (RHO), an international organization which uses mass media as a fund ...

'', a tribute to

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D ...

, which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

awareness and fighting the disease. Medeski Martin & Wood's live performances are renowned for their exploratory nature. Their concerts usually involve extended improvisations, which may be both arrhythmic and

atonal Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...

, an aspect of their musicianship that is rarely documented in the studio. They occasionally tour using only acoustic instruments, reverting to the instrumentation that they began their career with. Their album '' Tonic'' is an example of these more contemporary acoustic performances. They have also done short tours of entirely improvisatory performances. These shows usually consisted of two sets of improvisation, followed by an encore of a song from an album.

Side projects

Each of the trio's three members is involved in a large music community, and has participated in numerous side projects over the years. In 2001 John Medeski collaborated with the

North Mississippi Allstars North Mississippi Allstars is an American blues and southern rock band from Hernando, Mississippi, founded in 1996. The band is currently composed of brothers Luther Dickinson (guitar, lowebow, vocals) and Cody Dickinson (drums, keyboards, elec ...

and

steel guitar A steel guitar () is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conventional guitar i ...

ist Robert Randolph; together, these five musicians formed The Word, a

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

instrumental An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...

. They released two albums and toured extensively. Beginning around 2005 Chris Wood formed

The Wood Brothers The Wood Brothers are an American roots band consisting of brothers Chris (upright bass) and Oliver Wood (acoustic and electric guitars), as well as multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix. Their music is a combination of folk, gospel, blues and jazz. ...

with his brother, blues guitarist Oliver Wood. They have released several albums to date and continue to tour and record together. In 2007 John Medeski and Billy Martin released an album as a duo, called '' Mago''. They performed that material together at the 2007

Bonnaroo Music Festival Bonnaroo (or Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival) is an American annual four-day music festival developed and founded by Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment. Bonnaroo has taken place at what is now Great Stage Park, a 700-acre (280 ha) fa ...

. In 2016, John Medeski formed supergroup Saudade with

Chino Moreno Camillo "Chino" Wong Moreno (born June 20, 1973) is an American musician who is best known as the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the alternative metal band Deftones. He is also a member of the side-project groups Team Sleep, Crosses, ...

Deftones Deftones is an American alternative metal band formed in Sacramento, California in 1988. They were formed by frontman Chino Moreno, lead guitarist Stephen Carpenter and drummer Abe Cunningham, with bassist Chi Cheng and keyboardist and tu ...

Team Sleep Team Sleep is an American rock supergroup led by singer/guitarist Chino Moreno. Moreno is better known for fronting the Sacramento-based alternative metal band Deftones. Other recent members include guitarist Todd Wilkinson, keyboardist and tur ...

, Palms, and Crosses; guitarist Dr. Know of

Bad Brains Bad Brains are an American punk rock band formed in Washington, D.C., in 1976. They are widely regarded as pioneers of hardcore punk, though the band's members have objected to the use of this term to describe their music. They are also an ade ...

; bassist Chuck Doom of Crosses and Team Sleep; and drummer Mackie Jayson of

Cro-Mags The Cro-Mags are an American hardcore punk band from New York City. The band, which has garnered a strong cult following, has released six studio albums, with the first two considered the most influential. With a Hare Krishna background, they ...

and Bad Brains. In 2018 John Medeski formed John Medeski's Mad Skillet with two members of the

Dirty Dozen Brass Band The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is an American brass band based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The ensemble was established in 1977, by Benny Jones and members of the Tornado Brass Band. The Dirty Dozen incorporated funk and bebop into the traditional D ...

, releasing an album and touring under the name. In March 2020 during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, Medeski and Martin posted on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

an hour-long, live in-studio video performance as "Bandemic" with

and

Jesse Murphy Brazilian Girls is a band from New York, United States, known for their eclectic blend of electronic dance music with musical styles as diverse as tango, chanson, house, reggae and lounge (but no Brazilian rhythms at all). None of the members ...

. The performance was part of the Woodstock Sessions project, a series of performances documented at Applehead Recording Studios in

Woodstock, New York Woodstock is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, New York, Kingston. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The popula ...

Discography

(Artist name if not Medeski Martin & Wood)

Albums

* '' Notes from the Underground'' (1992) * '' It's a Jungle in Here'' (October 18, 1993) * '' Friday Afternoon in the Universe'' (January 24, 1995) * '' Shack-man'' (October 15, 1996) * '' Farmer's Reserve'' (February 11, 1997) * (John Scofield) - '' A Go Go'' (April 7, 1998) * '' Combustication'' (August 11, 1998) * '' The Dropper'' (October 24, 2000) * '' Uninvisible'' (April 9, 2002) * '' End of the World Party (Just in Case)'' (September 7, 2004) * (Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood) - '' Out Louder'' (September 26, 2006) * '' Let's Go Everywhere'' (January 8, 2008) * '' Zaebos: Book of Angels Volume 11'' (August 19, 2008) * '' Radiolarians I'' (September 30, 2008) * '' Radiolarians II'' (April 14, 2009) * '' Radiolarians III'' (August 4, 2009) * ''20'' (March – December 2011) * (Medeski Martin & Wood + Nels Cline) - '' Woodstock Sessions Vol. 2'' (April 15, 2014) * (Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood) - ''

Juice Juice is a drink made from the extraction or Cold-pressed juice, pressing of the natural liquid contained in fruit and vegetables. It can also refer to liquids that are flavored with concentrate or other biological food sources, such as meat ...

'' (September 16, 2014)

Live albums

* '' Tonic'' (April 25, 2000) * '' Electric Tonic'' (October 31, 2001) * ''The Stone: Issue Four'' (November 2010) * (Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood) - ''In Case the World Changes Its Mind'' (November 8, 2011) * ''Free Magic'' (September 25, 2012) * (Medeski Martin & Wood with

Alarm Will Sound Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member chamber orchestra that focuses on recordings and performances of contemporary classical music. Its performances have been described as "equal parts exuberance, nonchalance, and virtuosity" by the ''Financial Times ...

) - '' Omnisphere'' (September 14, 2018)

EPs

* ''

Bubblehouse ''Bubblehouse'' is a 1997 EP released by experimental jazz funk organ trio Medeski Martin & Wood. It features remixes and collaborations with saxophonist John Zorn, DJ Olive and DJ Logic. Track listing All music by Medeski Martin & Wood. # ...

'' (April 8, 1997) * '' Combustication Remix EP'' (April 20, 1999)

Compilations

* '' Last Chance to Dance Trance (Perhaps)'' (October 12, 1999) * '' Note Bleu: Best of the Blue Note Years 1998–2005'' (April 4, 2006)

Box sets

* '' Radiolarians: The Evolutionary Set'' (December 8, 2009)

DVDs

* ''Fly in a Bottle'' (October 25, 2011)

References

External links

Medeski Martin & Wood
official website

with John Poirier for Aural States (Sept 2009)
Conversation with Chris Wood
Interview with Chris Wood * {{DEFAULTSORT:Medeski Martin and Wood Jam bands Jazz ensembles from New York City American jazz fusion ensembles Gramavision Records artists Ropeadope Records artists Blue Note Records artists