Medeski, Martin & Wood – The Kent Stage – November 17

Before I dive into my impressions on Tuesday’s killer Medeski, Martin & Wood show, I thought it might be appropriate to talk about the spirit embodied by the band.  It goes without saying that the show was amazing. (They’re one of the four or five tightest live acts in the world, irrespective of genre; you know they’re going to be good.)  I’ll hit some of the things that struck me singularly at the tail end.  MMW are so captivating live, however, that they turn your brain to bigger things, broader ideas, spacier conclusions.

Here’s the deal:

Medeski, Martin & Wood, when seen live, offer a model for a perfect society.  If everyone conducted themselves according to the same values implicit in MMW’s performances, we would live in a utopia of milk and honey (honest).  The following things are absolutely true, embodied in an MMW performance and, if adhered to universally, would make the world a better place:

1. Merit should be rewarded. Each member of the band is incredibly skilled.  All three are at the absolute top of their musical game.  John Medeski murders the keys; there isn’t an approach he can’t take, an angle he can’t exploit, a sound he can’t produce.  Chris Wood is as solid as it gets on the bass; the solos are mind-altering (more on that later) and the work outside the solos is laced with subtlety and nuance (and funkiness).  Billy Martin makes more sound out of a small drum kit and an assortment of percussion ephemera than anyone on the planet (more on that later as well).  All told, dudes have a ton of merit.  Best part:  they are rewarded for it in a number of ways.  People come to the shows (The Kent Stage was packed on Tuesday) and soak in the brilliance.  More importantly (maybe), it’s clear that the music they pour out and the construction thereof is deeply satisfying to the band themselves.  So.  They’re really good at their craft, other people acknowledge that and they revel in their own talent; mirror that concept nationally (or globally) and way more folks are smiling at the end of a workday.

2. Open and honest communication is critical. Medeski, Martin & Wood are locked in on stage.  Their level of communication appears to approach telepathy.  They’re constantly checking in with each other visually and (presumably) through the music, sorting out where and when the next thing is going to happen.  At least half of the fun of seeing them live is trying to pick up on the messages they’re sending one another.  The shows sound so pristine because they work together to determine where they’re going next.  Imagine if all of your co-workers and your friends and your spouse (and so on) checked in with you consistently to ensure that everyone was on the same boat.  That’d be sweet, right?

3. Everyone (assuming merit) deserves a moment to shine; or, egalitarianism is good. This is a jazz idiom. but it is still both awesome and something that would ensure a more positive world.  Everybody in MMW gets a turn to shine.  They’re all good at what they do, so each member gets some space to stretch out, explore the territory, prove their worth.  Sharing is caring.

4. Things that aren’t the thing should be ignored. You ever see a member of a band (usually the lead singer) that thinks he (or she, no gender bias here) is interesting outside of the music?  If I want to know about African debt relief, for instance, I’ll ask an economist, not Bono.  I want Eddie Vedder to sing me songs, not tell me about his dreams.  (Sorry, Eddie.  But seriously, talk less, sing more.  Everybody wins that way.)  Medeski, Martin & Wood come onstage and play music.  No banter, no agenda, no life story.  Just a few hours of really well executed music.  The thing is the music, which is all MMW does.  At the end of each set, Martin introduces everyone and says thank you.  The rest is pure sound.  If we all only paid attention to the thing and disgregarded the periphery, we’d be in fine fettle.

So, get it together world.  Act like this jazz band and there will be world peace, universal harmony and, in short, all good things.

To close, there are three things that I will remember for a long time about Tuesday’s show:

1. Billy Martin’s drum solos – The show opened with Martin playing a Brazilian pandero (it’s a fancy tambourine; I only know the word because he used it in our recent interview).  He is making more sounds come out of this thing than you’d believe possible.  It is an orchestral percussion section in his hands.  That was a good start.  He’s also got a table of stuff behind him (bells, shakers, cowbells…) that he dips into on occasion to spice up the proceedings.  During one solo, he turned to his right, continued to play his kit with his left hand and played the stuff on the table with his right.  In an alternate reality, where your eye isn’t drawn to Wood and Medeski, you’d stare at Billy Martin playing the drums for the entire set.  (If this sounds like gushing, it is.  I am unapologetic about this.  Dude is a genius.)

2. Chris Wood playing the bass – Wood did the thing where he plays the upright bass like a drum.  This is another spectacle that is impossible to look away from.  He starts a bass solo, pulling the strings obscenely hard and fast, reaching down to hit the tiny strings on the bottom (I have no clue what these are called or even how to describe their location more clearly; they’re the part of the strings that extend past the thing that juts out to keep the strings off the wood.  There’s a word for this, I’m sure.  Anybody?) and then, out of nowhere he starts hammering on the bass with his fists and knuckles and fingers.  He’s a lanky cat, so the visual poetry squeezing all of these sounds out one instrument is a big part of the display.  When this went down, the room was dead silent; all you could hear other than the frenetic bass solo was the sound of several hundred jaws hitting the ground.

3. John Medeski is an octopus – Seriously.  Dude played no less than eight keyboards and rarely played less than two at once.

These three things were things (in one form or antoher) that I’d seen in previous MMW shows.  I know there’s going to be mind-numbing solos from all involved and I know that Medeski will do the ambidextrous freak thing.  What I never know (which keeps me going back) is the details, how they’ll sound on the night I’m going.  As long as they’re coming to town, I’ll be in the crowd, waiting to see something I’ve never seen, hear something I’ve never heard, even as I’m seeing things that are familiar and comfortable.

We’ve got a track from 2003 below to get you in the mood.  In the meantime, see this band as often as possible.  Also, buy this.

“Partido Alto” – Medeski, Martin & Wood – Live, 2003

(Posscript: I did not mention what they played.  It is totally irrelevant.  They played music.  It was awesome.  I did not write down song titles or (for the most part) catch that many.  It was heavy on Radiolarians material to my ear, but I’m sure there was some older stuff spiked in.  They could read the phonebook and I’d listen, so I (more or less) never pay attention to the songs they play or don’t play.  I want to soak it in, not catalog it.  The dude who kept screaming “Bubblehouse” at every opportunity didn’t feel the same way, apparently.)