  |
|
|
 |
|
CD |
| 4.500 Ft
|
|
| 1. | Waking Up
|
| 2. | Let's Go Everywhere
|
| 3. | Cat Creeps
|
| 4. | The Train Song
|
| 5. | Where's the Music
|
| 6. | Pat a Cake
|
| 7. | Pirates Don't Take Baths
|
| 8. | Far East Sweets
|
| 9. | On an Airplane
|
| 10. | The Squalb
|
| 11. | Let's Go
|
| 12. | Old Paint
|
| 13. | Hickory Dickory Dock
|
| 14. | All Around the Kitchen
|
| 15. | We're All Connected
|
| 16. | [Untitled]
|
| 17. | [Untitled]
|
Jazz
John Medeski - Author, Keyboards
Billy Martin & Socket - Arranger, Author, Drums, Maracas Mbira, Percussion, Vocal Engineer
Chris Wood - Author, Bass, Guitar, Harmonica, Vocal Engineer, Vocals
Marvin Pontiac - Vocals
Oliver Wood - Vocals
When John Medeski, Chris Wood and Billy Martin go into the studio to record any new album, they're never sure what will emerge. It was no different when the trio gathered in an upstate New York studio last year with a few concepts, a few musical ideas and a few friends, to create Let's Go Everywhere, their first recording designed to please their youngest fans.
Little Monster Records co-founder Kate Hyman is a longtime MMW devotee. She talked over some concepts with Wood as their two daughters shared play dates. "I knew they could make a good children's record - the childlike joy they express in their music is so perfect. We wanted to introduce children to jazz without making it too heady, to make it actually fun," explains Hyman.
The group settled on the idea of a journey, of travel both literal and figurative. It proved to be a motivating concept. "But we didn't have much going in," says Wood. "It was a thread we followed as we improvised, composed and worked through each piece on the spot. We call it 'spontaneous composition.'" Martin agrees that "we really had very little figured out. maybe a few ideas about a beat or a nursery rhyme we liked, but we went into the studio not knowing what would happen."
"It was terrifying," agrees Medeski, laughing. "But that's how it always is. Our music always comes out of improvisation." Martin remembers how the ideas bounced around and how "Chris would be in one corner writing lyrics while I worked out the drum parts." In four days, they managed to lay down the instrumental tracks for all 15 pieces.
Then the fun part began. Wood and Martin enlisted vocals from their children Nissa and Dakota. More children's voices were brought in from sessions with their classmates and friends. Dakota's punk-charged rendition of "Pat a Cake" came out of one take. And with the sounds of real-life kids playing with pots and pans, the traditional "All Around the Kitchen" gains true resonance. In the perfect party song, the band gets into a funky groove that stops suddenly, prompting enthusiastic young voices to shout, "Where's the Music?" and the music to start up again. "We got that idea from our kids' love of musical chairs," explains Wood.
As the party continued, the trio brought in other friends to add to the musical journey. Medeski's lifetime friend Tim Ingham composed the lyrics and recorded his resonant vocals for two songs: "Let's Go Everywhere" and "Pirates Don't Take Baths," both of which ended up being kid favorites in the listening sessions that followed. Martin enlisted the help of John Lurie, founding member of the Lounge Lizards who is well known for his film work (Down by Law, Stranger than Paradise). Lurie's wonderfully weird and subversive tale of the Squalb mesmerized listeners. Other pieces experimented with rhythms from far-flung cultures of the world- Asian, Brazilian, Latin and American jazz and other rootsy beats. Martin used the African mbira on some of the tracks, and Medeski pulled out his claviola, a limited edition Hohner instrument that lends haunting notes to "Far East Sweets" and "The Train Song."
All three band members see Let's Go Everywhere as an opportunity to play music they like without talking down to kids. "Kids are really quick," Medeski says. "We don't need to treat them like idiots." Wood agrees that "kids are like sponges. We like to introduce our own kids to a huge range of music, and they love all kinds of sounds." Martin calls this album "one of my favorite records, one of the best we've ever done" and says it brought band members closer together than ever. "It really sparked a new direction for us in many ways."
* Chris Bittner - Assistant
* Chris Jenkins - Assistant
* David Kent - Engineer, Mixing
* Kevin Salem - Vocal Engineer
* Michael Fossenkemper - Mastering
* Randy Bernsen - Vocal Engineer
Medeski, Martin & Wood
Active Decades: '90s and '00s
Born: 1992
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Jazz-Funk, Soul-Jazz, Post-Bop, Jam Bands
A group that effortlessly straddles the gap between avant-garde improvisation and accessible groove-based jazz, Medeski, Martin, & Wood have simultaneously earned standings as relentlessly innovative musicians and an enormously popular act. Emerging out of the New York downtown scene in the early '90s, the group soon set out on endless cross-country tours, before returning home to Manhattan to further refine their sound through myriad influential experimentations.
Each of the musicians -- keyboardist John Medeski, drummer/percussionist Billy Martin, and bassist Chris Wood -- crossed paths throughout the '80s, playing with the likes of John Lurie, John Zorn, and Martin mentor Bob Moses. In 1991, the trio officially convened for an engagement at New York's Village Gate. Soon, the group was rehearsing in Martin's loft, writing, and soon recording 1992's self-released Notes From the Underground. As the group began to tour, escaping the supportive, though insular, New York music community, Medeski -- a former child prodigy -- switched to a Hammond B-3 organ, an instrument far easier to travel with than a grand piano.
Grammavision released It's a Jungle in Here in 1993, which featured horn arrangements by future Sex Mob founder (and pan-scenester) Steven Bernstein. The medley of Thelonius Monk's "Bemsha Swing" and Bob Marley's "Lively Up Yourself" spoke volumes about what the band was attempting to accomplish. Friday Afternoon in the Universe, widely considered the band's breakthrough record, further continued the push toward groove-oriented accessibility, a movement which peaked with the group's 1996 Rykodisc debut, Shack-man (recorded entirely in the band's practice shack in the Maui jungle). By 1996, through a combination of endless touring and two widely circulated live collaborations with Phish, the group caught in the burgeoning jam band scene, where they continue to draw the bulk of their audience outside of New York.
Late in 1996, the group began a public return their avant-garde roots, hosting a series of weekly "Shack Parties" at New York's Knitting Factory, which featured collaborations with many musicians, including Vernon Reid and DJ Logic, who would soon become the group's unofficial fourth member. The trio issued the extremely free (and utterly beautiful) Farmer's Reserve on their own Indirecto imprint in 1997, a series of improvisations recorded at the Shack. Logic soon joined the band on the road, and they prepared to record Combustication, their first effort for Blue Note, as well as their first full-length collaboration with producer Scott Harding.
In 2000, the band made their coming-out as leaders with two releases -- the live acoustic Tonic (recorded at the New York City club of the same name), as well as the electric The Dropper (recorded at the band's newly christened Shacklyn Studios in the trendy DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn) -- as well as an acclaimed Halloween performance at Manhattan's Beacon Theater. The Dropper featured Harding's gritty production, as well as appearances by Sun Ra alum Marshall Allen. In 2006, the group released Out Louder, an album that saw them collaborate with John Scofield. Their music was also featured on Grey's Anatomy.
The band's reputation has achieved massive proportions. As they always have, the three core bandmembers contributed to numerous other recording projects, both as sidemen and leaders. Increasingly, their word was gold and their efforts carved paths for musicians to follow. Following their rise, for example, was a renaissance in B-3-based organ trios. Many groups had played with DJs before them, but their performances with Logic made it downright fashionable. Though they were -- and are -- considered "alternative" jazz, they were drawing larger audiences than many of their mainstream counterparts.
---Jesse Jarnow, All Music Guide |
|
CD bolt, zenei DVD, SACD, BLU-RAY lemez vásárlás és rendelés - Klasszikus zenei CD-k és DVD-különlegességek |  | | Webdesign - Forfour Design |
|
|
