How has being on Blue Note lent credibility to the band and how has the band lent credibility to Blue Note?
We felt lucky to be part of that heritage and be attached to the Blue Note name. It has an amazing catalog and history. We felt we could be the next wave of that. Because we’re living in the year 2000, not the ’40s and ’50s, jazz sounds different, especially when you’re truly improvising. You have the influence of all music that’s happened, including hip-hop, rock ‘n’ roll and all current types of music, not to mention other modern music and jazz, contemporary classical music. We’re influenced by all those things and it just comes out naturally.

There’s only one tune on the record where we were conscious about the way it was going to sound because it’s a tribute to a certain genre. ‘Illinization’ is a tribute to Varese, a contemporary classical composer and percussionist who wrote a piece called ‘Ionization.’ Billy wanted to do something inspired by that.

Comment on the recent tour with Bela Fleck & the Flecktones and how that’s such a great double bill.

That was fun. The whole summer was fun. We did some nice gigs by ourselves, then we had a run with Dave Matthews Band and then the Bela thing. We played some gigantic places and some intimate places. That’s what keeps it interesting for us.

With the live shows you’ll be doing through November, how much material is from ‘The Dropper’ versus your other eight albums?

The album is still pretty fresh for us, unlike in the past where we make a record and it gets released while we’re already touring with other material. We have yet to do a tour with ‘Dropper’ music so it will be fun for us to do live versions of those songs. We don’t really know what we’re going to do. It’ll be different night to night. Every venue is different and lends itself to a different way of playing. The tour will mainly be ‘Dropper’ music, but we’ll throw in some old things, I’m sure, and some new things that are not even on ‘The Dropper.’

How much of the trippy sounds on tunes like ‘We Are Rolling’ and ‘The Dropper’ are you able to recreate live?

It’s going to be different. Both those tunes were improvisations and weren’t written down. It’ll be different night to night depending on the tune. With ‘The Dropper,’ we’ve got Marc Ribot playing guitar so we’re going to try to bring him on some of the tour. We’re still working that out. We’d also like to bring out a percussionist on some of the things, like ‘Felic.’ That needs a great conga player.

Tell me about your project with Karl Denson. How did it come together and where is it going?

He just called me to do a record last February. It was more of a groove record. One of the tunes on there we did as a duet. That gave him the idea to do a duet record. I have no idea what his plans are with recordings. We’re just figuring it out now.

John and Billy also have a bunch of side projects, as well as independent record labels that they’re involved with. Comment on how you guys are involved in so many things, yet manage to keep MMW the priority. What is it about playing together that always returns you to the mothership?

I think we’ve managed to make sure there’s enough variety in the MMW world to keep things interesting. It’s enough of an outlet to feel creatively satisfied. We don’t have to start another band because there’s things we never get to do with MMW. None of us feel that way. We respect each other musically enough to go in different directions that the others want to go in.

But it’s really important to do things outside the band because every time we do, we learn something new that brings something fresh to the group. Even if the gig is totally a disaster, we come back to MMW saying, ‘Thank God, I’m back here playing with my friends.’ It’s an amazing experience to come back to one another with music to turn each other onto or a new way of playing that might inspire something new in the group. We always do that. When we’re so busy with MMW, we start to feel stifled and stagnant, then we chill out and schedule enough things to do outside the band.

I noticed you play a ‘baby bass’ on ‘The Dropper.’ What’s a baby bass?

A lot of the Latin guys use them for salsa. It’s an upright bass made of fiberglass and smaller than the acoustic bass, more portable. But it’s the same idea. It looks like a mini acoustic bass.

Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker who made ‘The Civil War’ and ‘Baseball,’ has a 10-part, 19-hour documentary coming up on PBS. I noticed that Medeski, Martin and Wood and your jazz peers weren’t included in the program. It seems to go no further than Wynton Marsalis and Cassandra Wilson. For what it’s worth, I don’t think there’s any act in jazz today that’s more about the future of jazz than Medeski, Martin and Wood. Given that, how does it make you feel that you weren’t include in ‘Jazz’?

I’m not surprised by it at all. Jazz has become another four-letter word to describe something that people aren’t sure what it is. People then latch labels on things. Some people consider the classic Blue Note and Columbia recordings jazz and they come up with different types of names for more current forms of improvisation: jam bands, acid jazz. It’s all labels. Nobody knows what to call anything anymore. I could see when you’re making a documentary, where do you draw the line? The spirit of jazz is improvising as opposed to having it worked out like pop music. So it’s a fuzzy gray line. But I’m not surprised.

What jazz artist has been the greatest influence on you?

I’d have to say Charles Mingus. He was probably the greatest bass player and composer. He influenced me in a lot of ways. Then, of course, if you trace back his roots, the influence is Duke Ellington and his great bass player, Jimmy Blanton. There was a certain spirit Mingus had. He was really tapped into the roots but super adventurous in the avant garde scene. So he had such a rootsy, bluesy feeling, but at the same time, he was exploring all boundaries. He was an inspiration for me.

__________

Bob Makin is an entertainment writer with Gannett New Jersey/New York Newspapers.

Pages:« Previous Page