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Medeski, Martin and Wood in Tel Aviv

Relix Israel Bureau Chief Justin Jacobs just handed in this review of a Medeski Martin & Wood show from late April.

Medeski, Martin and Wood
Barby
Tel Aviv, Israel
April 26

Avant-jazz trio Medeski Martin and Wood play music that fits Tel Aviv well: steady-grooving, late night funk without going over the top; the pure definition of easy flowing, laid back cool. In a city where no one goes to dinner until 11, sidewalk cafes are constantly overflowing and the beach is always full, it’s no surprise that MMW’s show at Tel Aviv’s Barby club hit the sweet spot for the city’s thriving hippie/hipster crowd.

But that said, the show was slow to heat up. Hitting the stage just before 11, keyboardist John Medeski, drummer Billy Martin and bassist Chris Wood slid into unhurried jazz jams without speaking to the varied crowd, consisting largely of secular Tel Avivis and the occasional religious Israeli, clad in tie-dye and traditional head-coverings and prayer shawls.

While Martin and Wood held the package together with a steady, rhythmic backbone, Medeski’s sonic scope was much wider — he often sported a curious, amused look as he floated over the keys, more concerned with exploration than melody. Often, the most entertaining bit of the songs was watching Martin’s sizzle and spark percussion unfold alongside Medeski’s cloudier, smoother sounds.

MMW’s music wasn’t the only experimentation going on that day in Tel Aviv. Before the show, the band held a workshop with kids involved in Heartbeat, an organization working to educate and bring together young Jewish Israeli and Palestinian musicians. As many bands opt out of shows in Israel, choosing instead to join a growing movement of BDS (boycotts, divestments and sanctions) to protest Israel’s actions in its conflicts in Gaza and the West Bank, MMW consciously made the effort to take proactive steps towards a peaceful solution.

That mindset resonated in the club, as the crowd ate up the band’s swirling, chilled-out grooves balanced with an eerie, creeping dissonance — hope in a place that so often explodes into war. Even when MMW broke into “Crosstown Traffic,” its first of two Hendrix covers, the relative heat was just a simmer — that familiar, ringing guitar riff, translated onto Medeski’s organ, whipped up the crowd’s energy without any real musical explosion.

When the trio returned for an encore after a short 90-minutes, Medeski spoke his only words to the crowd — a smiling, “Shalom, hello” — as they dove into “Hey Joe,” with its heavy, loping bassline slinking along while Medeski’s keys danced on top. The show let out into a humid Middle East night, with the crowd half-dancing as they wafted outside, like MMW’s tumbling grooves had been bouncing around Tel Aviv for hours, waiting to meet them.