Album Review

Often mislabeled as not just a jam band, but the quintessential ‘90s jam band, the explorative jazz trio of Medeski, Martin & Wood have been steadily pushing outward into uncharted territory at the avant-garde of both jazz and rock music since the good-time Clinton era ended. I have to admit I was surprised to find out they had recorded such an impressive number of increasingly challenging albums since the live record Tonic (2000), which (embarrassingly) was the last I’d heard from them until only a couple of weeks ago.

But one listen to “Flat Tires,” the first track on Radiolarians II, set me straight. Starting with the type of rev-up bass riff you’ll remember from Beastie Boys albums of the early ‘90s, “Flat Tires” spins into a brutal organ vamp beaten into time by a breakbeat/jazz rhythm. The hip eclecticism is no product of indie rock cross-genre playfulness. These guys really sound like this, and they’ve been doing it for twenty years. The disjointed piano midsection of the song is part Modernist sound painting, part Ornette Coleman, and part hip-hop filler. Yes, this is Medeski, Martin & amp; Wood, baffling the listener with their inimitable skill at melding genres and making it all sound so perfectly cool you expect Samuel L. Jackson to speak through your earbuds.

“Junkyard” sounds as it should: like a rusty, clanky machine stirring up dust under a relentless sun. John Medeski is even pulling some trick or another on his keyboard to fake the sound of a rather believable harmonica (and what is that keyboard? a damn Musitron?). Like a weekend trip to Tom Waits’ cerebellum, the song evokes something timeless and broken in the West, or a series of failed dreams. “Padrecito” follows with a more controlled, urbane rumba reminiscent of Dave Brubeck’s more adventurous fare. The sense of tight control is let loose on the next track, “ijiiji,” a disjointed bit of Modernism tossed in with a danceable piano riff that gives the impression of a song stretched out by tape loops and effect — rather than the ridiculously good trio creating each sound.

If “ijiiji” is impressive for the facts that it’s being played by an actual band and not Pro Tools, the whole of the Radiolarians trilogy is even more remarkable: according to MMW’s promo material, these songs were written and then perfected through performance before being set down in the studio. That means there’s nothing accidental, but nothing to over-planned and not yet fully explored. Whatever the group thinks of this new order in the process of releasing albums, I can say that it endows the recording with a feeling of live energy and limitlessness that is at the heart of what jazz means to Americans, which makes it something completely necessary to listen to right now.

If a more traditional take on jazz forms is what you’re looking for, “Riffin’ Ed” is your ticket. This track is followed by the soulful rave-up “Amber Gris,” one of the single best songs on the album. Borrowing from rock and soul music structure, this tip-of-the-hat to that waxy stuff we use to mine from the digestive tracts of sperm whales to keep ladies’ perfumes smelling good, the tune owes as much to James Brown and Charles Mingus as it does to Herman Melville. The more electro-noise polyrhythm found on “Chasen vs. Saribachi,” complete with its cheesy TV samples and echo-chamber drums, sounds like a lost secret track from hip-hop’s early days (only with a little NY No Wave thrown in for good measure).

The Mingus and Jimmy Smith influences get pretty deep on the strutting, R&B tinged “Dollar Pants” and “Amish Pintxos.” The sweaty wah-wah pedal guitar work on the latter could make Superfly blush. A bluesy barroom scene ends the show with “Baby Let Me Follow You Down,” a perfectly sleepy coda to all this post-something hipness.

For those who dig Radiolarians II, go back and give the first disc a listen. It’s equally as rewarding. Part III comes out later in the year.

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