Funky white boys infiltrate New Haven

COURTESY BLUE NOTE RECORDS Medeski Martin and Wood

Medeski Martin and Wood is a pretty boring band in terms of really fucked-up weird tour stories" according to bassist Chris Wood. But the organ-bass-drums trio is anything but boring onstage. The band, which has crafted a uniquely seasoned stew of sparse funky instrumental jazz, will roll into New Haven's Palace Theater on Sat., Nov. 12. The band's rabid following of fans will likely be rolling into town with them.

They've got a following that flocks to every show. There are countless MMW concert tape trading sites on the Internet. They've even played on the H.O.R.D.E. tour.

But even with an audience like that, don't peg MMW as a Phish-type band. Jazz Times described them as "the ultimate hybrid of the '90s, one where the influences of James Brown and Sun Ra, King Sunny Ade and John Coltrane, Sly Stone and Larry Young, The Meters and Charles Ives, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Smith meet on equal footing." On their current tour, the band's backstage stereo has been blaring everything from Lil' Kim to Duke Ellington to the Afro-Cuban All Stars to Stevie Wonder.

This may sound like a big mess on paper, but MMW isn't just another one of those anything-goes bands that combines disparate musical elements simply for the sake of making something new. To the contrary, MMW's music is a coherent, soulful rhythmfest of jazz and funk sounds. But they don't want to hear the dreaded F-word.

"None of us are really into fusion," Wood said. "You're always riding a fine line when you're playing funky instrumental music. You have to choose your sounds very carefully because you don't want to end up sounding anything like Muzak--and it can happen very easily, by picking the wrong sounds."

COURTESY GRAMAVISION RECORDS Billy Martin

But Wood and his bandmates don't really have to worry about their sonic collages playing in elevators anytime soon. The band's new album, Combustication, released in August, has been making waves in both jazz and popular music circles, in part because it was their first for the venerable Blue Note jazz label. But MMW's move to a label known specifically for jazz has caused something of an identity crisis.

"We always are falling in the cracks, in terms of labels. If you asked a jazz band, they'd call us rock music; to a rock band, we'd be jazz," Wood said. Maybe because of that brewing identity crisis, the band aimed at something different on this album.

"For Combustication, we wanted to work on making a better sounding record," organist-keyboardist John Medeski said. "Recording in New York gave us more time and space to experiment with fine tuning the details instead of relying exclusively on capturing what we do live. We were able to develop the music in the studio, to gather material and work it like a lump of clay."

Indeed, Combustication has a grittier and more structured feel to it than the group's prior albums, moving toward a less jazzy and more funky, accessible sound, a transition that Wood said is "just happening. Very little of what we do is in a preconceived conscious sort of way."

In fact, while in the studio recording their latest album, the band improvised many of the songs from scratch or from skeletal ideas. "`Hey-Hee-Hi-Ho' was totally from scratch," Wood said. "Billy went in laid down the drums. We had no idea what was gonna happen."

COURTESY GRAMAVISION RECORDS Chris Wood

"Whatever Happened to Gus," a jazz-poetry number with poet Steve Cannon atop a percussion figure and bassline, came about in an even more random fashion, typical of the band's recording process. "The three of us were improvising and rolling tape, and we liked what played," Wood said. "And then separately, Steve came in, and we just recorded him, talking about his dream that he had, reciting it. And then we combined the two things--we just glued the vocal part over the improvisation, and it seemed to work magically, as if it had been recorded live together."

This type of chemistry wasn't the only thing holding the recording of Combustication together. "I guarantee you that most of the music on this album was performed after we had a good meal and some wine and sake," Medeski said, noting various Greenwich Village spots near the studio.

The places and people of the Village scene gave birth to Medeski Martin and Wood in 1991. Medeski and Wood were playing piano and stand-up bass duo jazz gigs at the Village Gate, when they heard about drummer Billy Martin (no relation to the hired-again, fired-again manager of the 1980s New York Yankees) through composer-artist-drummer Bob Moses, with whom both Medeski and Martin had studied. From there, it was simple. Wood explained, "We rehearsed at Billy's house, and the chemistry was great."

COURTESY GRAMAVISION RECORDS John Medeski

"Billy wasn't from a straight-ahead jazz background," Wood said. Martin brought many of the group's more esoteric influences into the fold, including hip-hop, dance, and Latin music. "Whether it be salsa or Afro-Cuban or Brazilian samba or West African drumming, we're definitely influenced by a lot of the roots music," Wood said. "Not that we try to imitate it or anything, but there's a lot of inspiration that comes from those sounds on a sonic level--like [salsa pianist] Eddie Palmieri or [samba group] Los Muñequitos."

MMW's peppery soundscape comes from the landscape of characters populating the Village scene, which has been the band's stomping ground since its inception. Their musical partners-in-crime in the downtown scene have included everyone from jazz experimentalists John Zorn and Bill Frisell to the Black Rock Coalition. Two other musical pals from the Village scene, Chocolate Genius and DJ Logic (who joined MMW onstage for some turntable work during their Monday night "Shack parties" at the Knitting Factory last year) will also be appearing with MMW at the Palace.

Wood, however, doesn't see MMW going in an electronica-type of direction, in spite of the increasing popularity of the genre. In fact, he sees music swinging back toward the type of onstage chemistry that MMW will bring to the Palace this Saturday. "The latest trend is people getting turned on to real musicianship," Wood said, " People like to see the interaction. I mean, I think electronic music is great--I listen to it. It's exciting on record. But when you go see a live show, it's nice to see musicians interacting as opposed to seeing machines."

COURTESY GRAMAVISION RECORDS MMW insignia (painted by Billy Martin)

What about making a run at the mainstream? Will MMW's sound even become popular enough to get on MTV or the radio? Probably not. The group is content to build its reputation on its albums and live performances. "Our only long-term goal is to keep growing, changing, and getting better."

Maybe MMW's only shot at a major media break would be if Toyota used their version of Sly Stone's "Everyday People" in its car commercials. "They haven't called us yet," Wood said jokingly. "Our version's probably not recognizable enough for them."

But how do Medeski Martin and Wood feel about one of their live performance stalwarts being played during every Monday Night Football commercial break?

Wood responded, "All I can say is that we were doing it first!"

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