MMW plays free Jazz, but at what price?

Medeski, Martin, and Wood: The Dropper

Medeski, Martin and Wood (MMW) have long had an enviable position in the music world, being blessed with the support of both jazz purists and neo-hippies. They can play at venerated New York clubs like the Knitting Factory and Tonic and then head out on the H.O.R.D.E. Tour with the Dave Matthews Band, Phish and Neil Young. Each new release from the trio tops the Billboard Jazz charts while being lauded by critics from all genres.

The group takes full advantage of its success by charting its own course: after releasing the hip-hop influenced album Combustication in 1998, which featured the legendary DJ Logic on turntables, MMW turned around and released a live acoustic set, Tonic, this past April. Fans eagerly snatched up both, and MMW's concerts consistently sold out.

However, artistic freedom too often leads to narcissistic self-indulgence. MMW has been trending towards more free-form, experimental jazz for a while, but much of The Dropper goes off the deep end, contorting jazz pretensions, funk basslines, and hip-hop beats into a mash of sound that ranges from bland to downright ugly.

The album starts out with "We Are Rolling," and from the first minute it's obvious that this is not the MMW of Shack-man or even Combustication. It twists around its own formula with abandon: in the past most tunes from the trio prominently featured organist John Medeski, but for much of "We Are Rolling," drummer Billy Martin is the highest in the mix while Medeski and bassist Chris Wood serve as background noise to a drum solo.

Not that MMW hasn't explored this territory before. On its third album, Friday Afternoon in the Universe, it delved into free-form improv on short interludes like "Baby Clams," "Tea," and "Between two Lines." On several full-length songs on The Dropper, though, like the title track, "Tsukemono," and "Sun Sleigh," MMW goes all out and negates melody, rhythm and structure in favor of extended jams on a single theme, which always manage to last just long enough to get annoying.

The saving grace of MMW is its musicianship. The three talented players offer a unique sense of ensemble that redeems a couple of tracks on the album. "Note Bleu," which features Marc Ribot on guitars, is a pleasant funk track that emphasizes the percussive interplay between Medeski and Martin while highlighting how well the group integrates guests into its songs. "Partido Alto" opens like a piece of post-modern classical music before morphing into a hip-hop groove with extraordinary bass solos by Wood and acoustic/electric keyboard vamps by Medeski. "Shacklyn Kni-ghts," a reference to the Brooklyn-based studio "Shac-klyn," veers from Charles Mingus to the Beastie Boys, all in the space of five minutes.

One of the things that made past offerings from MMW so unique was their sense of the past. It referenced everything from the New Orleans funk of The Meters to Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis while keeping the grooves fresh by changing them often. On The Dropper, you get the sense that the trio is simply trying to be difficult, flying in the face of their jazz roots simply to assure themselves of their hipster credibility. What Medeski Martin and Wood forget, though, is that it was those jazz roots that made them so damn cool in the first place. (Blue Note)

—Dan Feder

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