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The great aspect about Mediski Martin and Wood is that they have never boxed themselves in. Get a guy like DJ Logic or Vernon Ried, and you've got ingrediants that were not available during the golden jazz era. Add horns or guitar or, really, anything desired, then take them out. Find areas that were dismissed or under explored.
This band does not really care what happens when or what its called, as long as it happens, and it always happens. Uninviable finds our hero three stripping down the grooves to bare essentials. You're not going to get the pure layred funk that Miles made back in the mid 1970s, but at this point, that would be a copy anyhow, and this is not the business MMW are in.What their business is on Uninvisable is packing art rock refereances, soul referances, avant-garde shadings, and all kinds volume and tone gradations into the grooves. Medeski Martin and Wood are smart enough to recognize that they work in post-genre jazz, and so instead of reinventing the wheel, they spin all the wheels, and spin them well. Grooves for these guys are not so much a genre as a blank canvas, and the payoff comes--big--when you hear the trio paint its litte swiggles: they can be bluesy one second, totally out there the next, and then go into a King Crimson mellotron blowout. When you have keyboard, bass and drums, you can play anything, from Jimmy Smith to Electric Miles to Stella By Starlight.
Many have compared this to Miles' Dark Mangus, and as process goes, this sure has merit. Expand the palate, retract the palate, and then expand it again, anytime you want.Let's face it: the great book of jazz was written by the mid-70s, so the job of a curious jazz musician now is to play with the genres, mix them and keep them fresh. Medeski Martian and Wood certianly do: they work within a range of 1950s panio trios, soul jazz, free jazz, dissonent funk, and even a little blaxploitation soundtrack.
For the CD version at least, it sounds as though I just paid $15 or so for an FM broadcast burned onto a CD. I know, I know, this compression is typical for popular recordings to make them "loud," but I had stupidly assumed it would not be the case for an MMW release.
I am not a vinyl-loving audiophile, but I would say that if you are a jazz or classical listener where you've gotten used to (somewhat) better recording quality, do not buy this. I guess part of the "fusion" is the rock-pop mastering.
Five stars for the music, 1 star for the recording quality, averages to 3 stars. This CD sounds no better than a stream from Rhapsody.
Load it onto your mp3 and be done with it -- a 256kbps mp3 file is audio overkill for this album. I love the music on this disc, so it's unfortunate I can barely tolerate listening to it.
The sound is horribly compressed with poor dynamic range, muffled with the highs rolling off steeply, and boomy bass.
They constantly keep it fresh. Not as experimental as their past albums, it gets back to the sounds that made the trio famous. I love this album. I really can't get enough of their beats.
MMW is destined to be one of the best unknown classic bands of the 90's and 2000's.great stuff thru and thru and not missing a beat along the way.new listeners should explore their larger catalog.truly an education.
I still wouldn't mind listening to any MMW album. Well it did.This is far, tricked out music. At times, I had to stumble to the next track, because there were clusters of songs that all seemed to be sounding alike with no direction. More borderline hip-hop, drenched in their usual instrumental funk fasion.
The thing that attracted me to this album was the cover. Pappy Check was the first MMW song I ever heard, and I loved it. I would fast foward to the next track finding it the next one to be more of a continuation of the previous one, rather then a new composition.There are a few shining moments on this disk, and any MMW is not bad. I said to myself, thats MMW for you.
I definately wasn't expecting what I heard when I bought this MMW album. Obviously, for me, that's one of the high points of this album.MMW has grown, and it's almost inevitable that they will grow even further, so I'm not about to let a few dissapointing tracks ruin my love afair with Medeski Martin and Wood. I didn't think the cover would say how different this album was going to be, from their other previous releases. It really isn't jazz.
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