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Amazon.com's Best of 1998The rather plainly named Medeski Martin & Wood have almost single-handedly returned the spotlight to the more out-there fusion between bop jazz and on-the-one funky rock music. Wheezing and huffing behind a bank of old-school keyboards, Medeski Martin & Wood plow into their songs with abandon. The drums of Billy
Amazon.com's Best of 1998
The rather plainly named Medeski Martin & Wood have almost single-handedly returned the spotlight to the more out-there fusion between bop jazz and on-the-one funky rock music. Wheezing and huffing behind a bank of old-school keyboards, Medeski Martin & Wood plow into their songs with abandon. The drums of Billy Martin push the band out and away rather than gathering them neat and tidy, while bassist Chris Wood delivers the rhythms that somehow manage to keep every musical tidbit strapped to the deck. For his part, keyboardist John Medeski slaps and whacks his keys with inspired malice, all the while leaning heavy on the volume pedal. With the addition of DJ Logic further warping this band's sound, Medeski Martin & Wood have reached escape velocity and are now orbiting the planet. They may never come back. --S. Duda
Amazon.com essential recording
On their Blue Note Records debut, MMW move away from the diffuse, free form jams that characterized their 1996 release, Shack-Man, but the organ trio's trademark free-jazz-daring meets groove-happy-funk approach isn't diminished by move. The return to the more tightly focused approach that characterized Friday Afternoon in the Universe, may be motivated by commercial concerns (how many more Phishheads can they possibly convert?) but it's also a musical triumph; Combustication is the trio's finest of their six recordings. DJ Logic's warbling scratches enliven "Start-Stop" and "Church of Logic." Poet Steve Cannon recites some appropriately fried verses on "What Ever Happened to Gus," and the band takes Sly Stone's "Everyday People" away from Madison Avenue and into the Southern Baptist church. But is it jazz? Well, as Lester Bowie once said to a similar inquiry, "It depends on what you know." --Martin Johnson
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Track listing1. Sugarcraft
2. Just like I pictured it
3. Start/stop
4. Nocturne
5. Hey hee hi ho
6. Whatever happened to Gus
7. Latin shuffle
8. Everyday people
9. Coconut boogaloo
10. Church of logic
11. No ke anu ahiahi
12. Hypnotized
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