In a distinct and vivid reflection of their live performances, Medeski Martin & Wood have certainly traveled a most intriguing career path over the course of their near-thirty years together. The threesome has followed its collective instincts in every facet of their work as unerringly as they do within the spontaneity of their moments live on stage, constantly challenging themselves and exhibiting confidence in their individual technical abilities as deep and abiding as their bond as a band.
That approach has, in turn, has allowed them to formulate, then deconstruct, a style that’s (almost) immediately recognizable no matter what alterations they apply to its fundamental shape. As a result, just as no two concerts of theirs will ever be quite the same, so too their studio recordings are at once whole and complete unto themselves, yet still of a piece with their body of work, like The Dropper, now two decades old (released 10/24/00).
Having lulled the label with its 1998 Blue Note debut Combustication, MMW tossed a sharp left curve at the label with its follow-up two years later. The album marked the inception of the overriding premise of their affiliation with the venerable jazz record company, that is, to experiment more than play it safe. That iconoclastic attitude effectively began with some bizarre and cryptic cover art: if the graphics were designed to leave the viewer/listener off-balance, in advance of hearing the music, the gesture worked.
And the very first cut cements that impression as it belies its title and a spoken intro, the trio not slipping into much of a groove until around the four-minute mark. Rather, they’re eschewing groove reminiscent of the prior record (and classics like Shackman) in favor of jarring dissonance and frenetic rhythms, alternating in quick succession. “Big Time” is thus most reassuring as the group bounces together in a big funky beat that evokes Friday Afternoon in the Universe and, even if the sound quality doesn’t radiate much warmth despite the prominence of John Medeski’s organ, Chris Wood’s bass bubbles just below the surface to impart some heat.
It only stands to reason than that his instrument would begin “Felic.” The playing of the younger of The Wood Brothers precedes the metamorphosis of Eddie Bobe’s congas and Marshall Allen’s saxophone lines from a leisurely gait to driving, insistent tempo in which their somewhat angular sounds become mirrored by clavinet and ambient noise. You can’t quite dance to this, at least not gracefully, but the NOLA-influenced acoustic piano would get a crowd on the floor and Billy Martin’s second-line derived drumming would keep it there. That is, before the seemingly random “Partido Alto” emerges almost as imperceptibly as “Illinization” crystallizes: kudos to MMW for not only bringing in other players as humble as they are inventive, but also co-producing with Scotty Hard to ensure the finely-parsed likes of such as Marc Ribot’s guitar get its just due on “Note Bleu.”
Something of a conventional strut appears wisely placed in the sequence of thirteen tracks and thereby offers some respite from the apparent anarchy surrounding it. The title song is another jagged interval, yet hypnotic to a degree nonetheless in its deliberation procession of atonality. “Philly Cheese Blunt” begs the question of where these song titles come from (though like “Shacklyn Knights,” it has a certain logic within the lore of the unit), but more importantly, this track is a microcosm of the album: Medeski Martin and Wood, with seemingly no effort whatsoever, extract then sculpt structure straight from their own internal shared chemistry.
After the ever-so-brief “Sun Sleigh,” “Tsukemono” begins a recapitulation of the album, its decidedly exotic overtones reminding how the trio maintained a discernible level of accessibility on The Dropper precisely by not going on for too long in any one direction; most tracks are in the three to four-minute range, thereby simultaneously tantalizing listeners and piquing their curiosity. This is exactly how “Norah 6,” works, a naggingly familiar melodic motif eventually supplanted with a meld of groove and noise. It is logical if suspenseful means to close an album that is the absolute antithesis of ear candy.
Medeski, Martin & Wood continued further in this direction on the next album, Uninvisible, as well as their finale with Blue Note, End Of The World Party (just in case), a process of streamlining that came to fruition on their own Indirecto label with The Radiolarians Series. Not surprisingly, having turned upside-down the regular recording/touring cycle, the threesome then entered a quasi-hiatus state as idiosyncratic as their approach to playing together, all of which intermittent group activity—from multiple collaborations with John Scofield to an interactive on-line production titled Outside the Lines—only reaffirms that, for these musicians, art mirrors life and vice-versa, a kinetic state of being perhaps never more vividly captured, at least in retrospect, than on The Dropper.
