Medeski Martin and Wood is probably the most impressive headliner in the six-year history of the Scranton Jazz Festival. But, while the experimental instrumental trio might help increase the profile of the festival, MMW is anything but a member of the jazz establishment.
Jazz purists, bassist Chris Wood says in a recent phone interview, reacted in several curious ways when the band — which includes organist John Medeski and drummer Billy Martin — first made the scene in the early ’90s.
“A combination of totally ignoring us because they didn’t even consider us jazz enough to worry about it, or other people would get very upset about it,” says Wood.
MMW will perform at the festival Saturday, Aug. 8 at 8 p.m.
After growing up in Colorado and briefly studying at the New England Conservatory, Wood moved to New York, hoping to immerse himself in the renowned jazz scene there. But it didn’t work out as planned.
“I was turned off by the cliques,” he says. “It was kind of segregated. I didn’t feel openness. So I kind of fell into this downtown new music scene with the likes of John Zorn, Marc Ribot, that whole Knitting Factory scene. That’s where MMW got together. So I already had sort of rejected the jazz world by the time we had gotten together.”
The group, despite its members’ jazz backgrounds and education, never fit comfortably in the traditional jazz world, thanks to its use of hip-hop beats and other non-conformist ideas. But the sound caught on with listeners looking for something fresh, and after a few independent releases, even the legendary jazz record label Blue Note couldn’t ignore MMW, signing it to a deal in time to release the live acoustic album “Tonic” in 2000. Since then the band has formed its own record company, Indirecto.
At the time of Wood’s conversation with the Weekender, the band was gearing up for the third annual Camp MMW, set for Aug. 1-6 at the Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, N.Y., which is in the Catskill Mountains. Camp MMW, which accepts only 80 students, provides opportunities for music students to live and study with MMW.
The band’s latest series of releases, titled “Radiolarians,” is ambitious even by MMW’s standards. The two-year series, which MMW wrapped up in late 2009, consisted of three records — “Radiolarians I,” “Radiolarians II” and “Radiolarians III” — as well as a cumulative box set called “Radiolarians: The Evolutionary Set.”
The series is so intensive, Wood isn’t sure how many songs it includes. “I can’t remember,” he says. “Ten or 11 per CD, and extra cuts.”
The “Radiolarians” project also found MMW undertaking a series of tours in which the band only played music from the three records.
“Ya know, it was a big experiment. I don’t know, our whole career is a big experiment,” Wood says of the “Radiolarians” concerts. “I think sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. You know, it wasn’t easy. I think it depends on the kind of fan.”
Although experimentation has been the driving force behind MMW’s nearly 20-year career, “Radiolarians” pushed the band even further away from the norm.
“For us, though, it was valuable, because I think it forced us to explore some new territory and write a ton of new music in a short period of time,” Wood says. “I think after those tours and making the records, and we got the box set out, it’s just gotten better and better. I still think we’re kind of experiencing the wake of this whole crazy thing, and it’s still enjoyable and hopefully for our fans, as they get more familiar. It’s a lot of music, especially this day in age.”
Wood says the new tour will feature a lot of “Radiolarians” pieces, as well as music it recorded with Zorn, new stuff, old stuff — a little bit of everything, really.
MMW fans haven’t had much of a choice when it comes to following the shifting muses that inspire the band. It’s brought in outside musicians, like guitar virtuoso John Scofield, for certain projects, and even released a children’s album called “Let’s Go Everywhere” in 2007. The members have also worked independently from each other — Medeski holding solo piano recitals, scoring films and playing with pedal steel master Robert Randolph in a band called The Word; Martin running his own label and releasing volumes of drum beats; and Wood working with his brother, blues guitarist Oliver Wood, in the band The Wood Brothers. Medeski and Martin even formed their own duo, releasing an album in 2007.
For Chris and Oliver, growing up in a musical family — their father Bill Wood, namely — had quite an impact.
“Well, I mean, my father, what he did was play music to us regularly,” Wood remembers. “He was kind of coming from that late-’50s, sort of that whole folk scene in Cambridge, (Mass.). He went to Harvard and was there and played a bit and recorded with Joan Baez. … So Oliver and I grew up with him playing and singing in the house. I think you can’t underestimate the influence that has, just that energy, that transference.”
The energy level seems to be high for Medeski Martin and Wood, with projects starting, finishing and sometimes meshing together. Free time, it seems, is not something the band members are particularly fond of.
“I guess not,” Wood says, adding that The Wood Brothers recently finished recording a new album. “At least I don’t. It’s been pretty crazy the last few years to try to do both the bands. I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t give it up. It’s helped me grow.”
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