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| 1. | Chantes des Femmes
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| 2. | Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down
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| 3. | Kota
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| 4. | Undone
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| 5. | Wonton
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| 6. | Walk Back
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| 7. | Jean's Scene
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| 8. | Broken Mirror
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| 9. | Gwyra Mi
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Jazz / Jazz-Funk, Soul-Jazz, Modal Music, Post-Rock/Experimental, Avant-Garde Jazz
John Medeski - Keyboards
Chris Wood - Bass
Alan Silverman Mastering
Carmel Holt Art Direction, Layout Design, Design
David Kent Producer, Mixing, Engineer
David Perry Design, Art Direction, Layout Design
Ernst Haeckel Illustrations
2009 release from the seemingly unclassifiable trio, the third and final installment in their Radiolarians trilogy. Highlights include the passionate and gritty traditional 'Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down,' the anthemic 'Undone,' and the Latin-influenced acoustic opener 'Chantes Des Femmes.' Overall, Radiolarians III finds the trio doing what they do best - melding genres and improvising. What results, is maybe the strongest and most cohesive album of the entire Radiolarian's series.
All three volumes of Medeski, Martin & Wood's Radiolarians series were reportedly to be recorded and released in 2008. Only the first volume appeared, but it provided a solid clue to both the formula and the wild adventurousness that the series would embody. Radiolarians III is the final volume in the series. What inspired it was a formula, pure and simple, a reversal of what is usually the case for a band to follow. Rather than write new material, then record it and tour, the trio reversed the process. They went out and toured incessantly, improvised and wrote new material on the road, gave it real form and focus, and then, finally, recorded it. This volume is as delightful as its predecessors, and offers inarguable proof that after 18 years, MM&W are still discovering new ways to stretch the jazz trio format, finding new music to integrate, spindle, warp, re-form, and refresh, without sacrificing it to endless synthetic edits and samples. In essence, they remain a live trio, and virtually everything they play comes out that way on record. This set was recorded in three days. The meld of jazz, vanguard classical music, gospel, rock, funk, New Orleans stride and second line, country, blues, modal music, Indian classical, and other world folk forms is simply staggering, and it is seamless -- even when the music gets the party rockin'. Check the second track, "Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down." It commences with John Medeski's elliptical 20th century vanguard improv piano dissonance eventually entering into the musical terrain of James Booker before becoming a psychedelic, funky arrangement of "This Train," while Chris Wood's fuzzed-out bass plays the melody, and Billy Martin's drum skitters in syncopated breaks and march rhythms. "Undone" is a rock tune with breaks, rolling shuffles, and crescendos galore. Wood's bassline offers a lead into exploration that checks early New Order's "bass first" approach. But it is as rhythmically in the pocket as the MG's -- it even gets a bit Hendrixian in the middle section just for good measure, with Wood's use of a wah-wah pedal and the organ by Medeski sounding like something from Electric Ladyland instead of Steve Winwood. "Walk Back" is full-on funky B-3 trio groove with Medeski ripping it up. "Jean's Scene" feels a lot like Eddie Palmieri's more improvisational jazz thangs, but with the impeccably articulate Medeski being cleaner , lighter, and more on the soul tip à la Ramsey Lewis. While it may not be the most fingerpopping track on the set, "Kota," with gorgeous arco work by Wood -- who also apes the sound of various Asian and African stringed instruments with his bass -- begins as a speculative, hesitant mediation by Medeski in the upper register and eventually becomes an exotic, minor-key droning, tranced-out groove that doesn't let up even when he lets loose with some wild improvisation in the middle section. Radiolarians III is a fitting parting shot in an experiment that perhaps worked beyond its participants' expectations. The entire series should be purchased and spun repeatedly. There is so much to discover, it will still sound new in a decade or even two. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
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; the latter 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. Radiolarians 1, the first of three loosely linked albums, appeared in the fall of 2008 on the group's own Indirecto Records imprint. Radiolarians 2 followed a year later. 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 |
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