Features

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

The band amicably parts way with Blue Note after 2004’s End of the World Party (Just in Case) and reunites with Scofield for Out Louder, the first album on the band’s own Indirecto label.

Medeski: We kept talking with Scofield and saying that we needed to do something else because we never toured behind that other record. This time, we wanted to do it as a full collaboration because the last one was his tunes. We had Scotty do the production again.

Scofield: After A Go Go they were really busy and had really become famous. For a couple of years we did a bunch of festival gigs because people really liked A Go Go. Then I noticed that that stuff would get on another level from my songs. The idea for Out Louder was to take it to another place. So we primarily wrote that music together by jamming. We did one day, and I think this was Medeski’s idea, where we played completely free at their studio in Brooklyn. We did like three 40-minute pieces that were not preconceived. Then we took those and reconstructed sections of them and turned them into tunes. And there are a few excerpts from those jams that made it onto the album. I also brought in a tune or two, and Chris brought in a tune and we recorded “Julia” by The Beatles and the Peter Tosh tune “Legalize It.” We also did three tunes that were multi-layered and overdubbed. We started with just a drum track and then built stuff around it.

*The band moves its Shacklyn Studio upstate and begins work on the Radiolarians project which it delivers in 2008 and 2009. Separately released at various times as three separate CDs, Radiolarians is eventually repackaged into a 5 CD-boxed set with vinyl and a DVD.

Medeski: We are just finding a way to stay inspired. The idea was to do seasonal touring, write all new material and record it right after we got back so we have rehearsed.

Martin: It was John’s idea to do seasonal music, to get together for a few days and try to develop the seeds of these ideas. Then the pressure is on: you realize that, “Oh shit, we are really doing this. We have three days to get together two sets of music and play it in front of an audience.” There were definitely butterflies. You get nervous, which is good because it means that you care.

Wood: We were really looking for a way to force ourselves to write a bunch of new music. It definitely worked. It was what we used to do when we were younger and then our lives got complicated. Everyone got married, had kids, mortgages and stuff. It just got harder to find time to hang out together in a room and work on music.

This year the band toured Colorado and the West Coast in the spring and has a bunch of New York area dates in the summer. After a summer tour with saxophonist Bill Evans and trumpeter Randy Brecker, the trio will head out again in the fall

Medeski: The recent tour was a blast. The second sets revisited the Shack Party idea. We would just improvise and play groovy stuff. In certain towns, we had people join in—Ralph Carney sat in in San Francisco, he’s one of our favorites who has played with Ribot, Tom Waits and others. We had this baritone clarinet quartet in Los Angeles who opened for us and came up and jammed. Kyle Gass from Tenacious D sat in on recorder with us.

Wood: The audience voted on Facebook and made our first set, forcing us to learn a bunch of older material, some stuff we had never played live before and other stuff we hadn’t played in a long time. Then we have an improvised Shack Party during the second set, so that will be sort of a groove-oriented improvised set. That was good, too. It was kind of the best of both worlds.

Martin: The idea of letting the fans pick the setlist was something we would wince at back in the day, but it actually turned out to be really fun. A lot of people have been coming out. We are not playing huge venues but we aren’t playing super small ones either. The love is there and we have new fans and old fans, plus the relationship with the band is better than ever.

It all comes down to chemistry (conclusion).

Penta: I call them Yes, No and Maybe. John is yes. Billy is no, and Chris is maybe. [Laughs.] John has a lot of trouble saying no to anyone and he means it, but he can’t do it all because he can’t. Chris is a thinker. It takes him a while to deliberate. He spends a lot of time in solitude practicing and thinking. Billy wants to do a lot too, but he’s very discerning. If he doesn’t want to do something, he’s very clear and forthright. It’s the dynamic of who they are and it works.

Wood: They are still two of my favorite musicians. The guys are just incredible. They still have a lot of new stuff to offer, so it is definitely never dull. I never get bored with MMW, it’s a challenge.

Scofield: The ingredients they have together make them special. They can groove, but they can play free—and they are committed to playing free. It’s a philosophical commitment to spontaneity. Certainly in the jamband world, very few bands have maintained that and the ones that have the spontaneity can’t back it up with chops. [MMW] are jazz-based musicians who are real improvisers. It’s what separates them from the rest of the jamband world for sure.

Ribot: Nothing has changed [with them since we first met]: they’re totally fun to hang with and to play live with. They remained committed to a large amount of improvisation in their set long after the point where other bands would have given in to shtick. They don’t view people sitting in as an interruption, but just as an opportunity.

Anastasio: The thing about MMW is that time will only make them better. That’s one of the benefits of playing for many years in a group that improvises and really listens. The music gets deeper as a result of shared experience. It just has to. I want to see MMW play on the night of their fiftieth anniversary. By the time they’re in their eighties, they could be like the Modern Jazz Quartet.