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Yes, No and Maybe: Celebrating 20 years of Medeski, Martin & Wood’s musical adventures

MMW cut A Go Go with John Scofield in 1997. The album propelled both the guitarist and the band to new levels of popularity.

Scofield: Their first couple of records were on Gramavision and then I heard Shack-man and I thought to myself, “These guys have really gotten great.” That was when I called them up. For some reason, nobody had any of their numbers but I got this number that they had set up for fans to leave messages on. It was before websites and before the Internet. They thought it was a joke when I called. Eventually they called back a few weeks later.

Martin: He was open to doing writing together or whatever. There was a certain amount of reverence, particularly coming from John. So we all decided that he would write the material and we would arrange it. I felt that we were going to play the way we’re going to play, so it didn’t really matter who wrote it. We had a couple of rehearsals and it just felt really easy. It’s easy to play with him, so when we got into the studio is was just a breeze.

Medeski: I don’t really remember anything from the session.

Wood: I think the reason [Medeski] doesn’t remember anything from the session was because of how easy it was. It was the most effortless thing. We got together with him and he’d written some charts. We played them; he liked it. It was easy. We hardly had to talk about the music. He gave us a lot of freedom to interpret the charts the way we wanted to. He wanted us to be ourselves and do our thing. There were maybe two or three takes of each song and that was that.

Scofield: What was so amazing was that I wrote these tunes and then got together with them. When we played them, they were fully formed because [MMW] play so well together. They made room for me on guitar, so it seemed to work right away.

After three albums on Gramavision, the band went shopping for a new record label. After being courted by 17 labels, they eventually signed to Blue Note in 1998.

Bruce Lundvall: (former Blue Note president): I loved the band from the beginning—their first album—and I chased them all over the West Coast once I got the OK to sign them. I saw them in San Francisco and Los Angeles and I tried to sign them for a long time. Finally, they said yes.

Medeski: Bruce Lundvall was the first to come to us in the bidding war. And he was a real music guy. We met with some people and it was just shocking how few there were. Whenever I sat with Bruce—which wasn’t often but it did happen—and we listened to music, his eyes were closed and we listened to music; not talking over it about something else.

Lundvall: They didn’t want to be labeled as jazz so I told them that we wouldn’t label them at all. They’d be Medeski Martin and Wood and that’s it, which was fine.

Martin: I hated that time. I was the first one to say we needed to make a CD, shop it around, make press kits, call the clubs and get gigs. The bidding war was kind of cool, but then I began to sense this slimy shit that happens when people can smell money. Liz knew everyone from working at CB’s Gallery and she was getting a lot of great advice from friends who helped out. But, at the same time, some of them wanted to sign us and I hated it. These people were so full of themselves. They were so sure of themselves about what we needed to do to get to the next level, be it telling us we needed to get a singer or whatever. Donny Ienner of Columbia/Sony wouldn’t ever look at me; he wouldn’t look at you in the eye because he was too busy. Bruce Lundvall was like family.

Lundvall: They had an adventurous nature, a musicality to them and they way the integrated different things meant that they had a different style of their own. That was the thing that got to me. I remember in LA they did a version of “Fungii Mama,” a piece written and played by Blue Mitchell who recorded for Blue Note in the ‘60s. I told them they needed to record that, but they never did. I always held it against them. They would have had a hit.

All three had different points of view but a common goal and a vision and they were doing it beautifully. There was a high level of playing but they were rhythmically relatable to younger audiences. That was very appealing to me, actually. That young people were dancing and people were crowding into a ballrooms to hear this music that was all instrumental was fabulous.

As the band’s popularity grew outside the jazz/experimental/ underground community, it started to see a whole new crop of fans drawn to the long exploratory interplay and ferocious grooves.

Penta: Phish started playing MMW’s records during their set breaks. They somehow had got the albums and become big fans of the band unbeknownst to the band who didn’t know who they were. Then Trey started talking about them in interviews. Then we started seeing these T-shirts at the shows that had the BMW logo and they said, “MMW: ‘Music that makes me want to drive too fast,’” which is a quote by Trey [from Phish’s Doniac Schvice newsletter]. Then people were selling them and we were like, “Wait a minute. Who is this band?” We eventually met them and formed a friendship.

Martin: It was like a love-hate relationship with these new fans. They didn’t know how to dance. I would look out there and wonder what they were doing. I’d be playing some hardcore beats and nobody was shaking their ass. Instead they’d be twirling around like a whirling dervish or hula hooping and juggling. I didn’t see how it was connecting or participating in the music. But at the same time, that’s their culture, that’s how they participate. I didn’t understand it. Sometimes it made me angry.