Here’s a special expanded version of the oral history that appears in the September issue of Relix.The list of bands to make it 20 that still have all its original members is extremely short, but we can now add Medeski Martin and Wood to it. Launched in Brooklyn practice spaces and East Village clubs, the trio of 20-somethings started out as an acoustic piano trio, but was not to last. They blended classic jazz, African percussion and downtown avant-garde experimentation and soon plugged in to add rump-shaking funk and modern beats and sounds.

What follows is the oral history of the band, from the early days in Boston before they got together to their emergence on the East Village scenes of the Knitting Factory and CBGB’s Gallery. They jumped in a van (and then an RV) literally living on the road as they grew their fan base and wintered in Hawaii, recording one of their greatest albums (if not their most trying) there. They survived a bidding war with 17 labels to sign with the legendary Blue Note label. These days they are independent once again and as creative as ever. What follows is a history of the trio as told by the band and people who were there.

Keyboardist John Medeski first met bassist Chris Wood in Boston where the two were attending the New England Conservatory of Music. The duo later connected with New York City-based drummer Billy Martin via legendary jazz drummer Bob Moses.

John Medeski: I met Chris on a gig in Boston. His approach to rhythm and power was something I really related to. We did some gigs with Bob Moses, who was encouraging to all of us. Chris, Bob and I went on a tour of Israel together, which was amazing. Then we both moved to New York at the same time and Chris played with me at The Village Gate a little bit. We worked up a bunch of material doing acoustic duos, mostly our own arrangements of jazz standards.

Billy Martin: I met John at this Bob Moses gig where I was playing some percussion and electronic drums. I’d heard about John from Moses and he came to the gig. He had this big beard and wore overalls. He was living out in the Berkshires and he looked like a lumberjack. I remember thinking, “This is John Medeski?”

Chris Wood: We had been doing these duo and trio gigs at the Village Gate with more traditional jazz drummers. We knew about Billy, and John had met him and seen him play. John was interested in the fact that he was not a jazz drummer, but had the ability to improvise and was a great musician. The first song we sat down played together was “Uncle Chubb,” which was on the first record.

Medeski: The first time we got together and played in 1991, the first thing we did was tune which we later transcribed and recorded [as] “Uncle Chubb.” We added horns and stuff. But that’s verbatim of what we played. We were instantly making music together when we played. The chemistry was right there and we’ve been working on it ever since.

After recording their first album Notes From the Underground as an acoustic trio with some horns, the band went electric.

Martin: The first time John and I played together was in my loft in Dumbo playing duets with him plugging a Korg into an amp I had. So I knew he had this other thing besides playing acoustic piano. We went everywhere we possibly could that day – we were even using our voices at one point – and he was right there with me the whole time. It felt special.

Medeski: The music evolved from there. The organ added a whole new pile of references and a whole new dimension. It gave me another world of colors and power. One of the reasons why we got together and why Billy Martin was so perfect was that we were really honest about who we were. As much as I studied and played jazz and thought that that was what I was going to do, I’m not an old jazz guy. I came to terms with what I was listening to and the world I grew up in and tried to find a way to really be sincere. Billy was coming out of funk, hip-hop and Brazilian music; it was all dance and groove related, but he was also creative and into improvising. He could play, hold a groove, sustain and build under a soloist for a while. He had a way of doing that and it felt great when we played together.

Before settling on the rather direct band name Medeski, Martin & Wood, the trio toyed with other names courtesy of downtown New York iconoclast musician/artist John Lurie of Lounge Lizards fame who Medeski and Martin had gigged with.

Medeski: When we did our first tour, we sent around a press kit that had a different name for the band – Coltrane’s Wig, which was given to us by John Lurie. We were looking for a name and we loved [Lurie’s] sense of humor and everything about him. At the time, he was the quintessential downtown artist. His paintings are incredible and his titles are amazing. He has a way with words. So he gave us three names and we picked Coltrane’s Wig. It didn’t really work, though in Knoxville Tenn. they called us that for many years. The reaction we got from owners of jazz clubs in other parts of the country was really funny. I wish I had a recording of when I would call and follow up. [Laughs.] I guess it was a little irreverent, but we love Coltrane and we love wigs. We felt that it just didn’t apply and at that time there were so many bands with cool names that were just terrible.

John Lurie: (musician/artist): That is a terrible name. Thank god they didn’t use it. I keep seeing it pop up lately. Isn’t funny how some dopey thing you said off the top of your head, like calling the Lounge Lizards “fake jazz” sticks around forever. But no – Coltrane’s Wig – that would have been awful.

Wood: We never meant for that name to get out. It was a joke, but then we pull up to our first gig we ever played in Knoxville and there was the poster all over town. It created a stir because it was so un-PC but hilarious. People either laughed at it or were horrified. The promoter who brought us there loved it, but he was a pretty eccentric guy.

Luther Dickinson: (North Mississippi Allstarts guitarist): I had a cassette of Coltrane’s Wig. All the musician kids in the Memphis area were mad for it and passing the tape around, “Yo, check out these cats from NYC!”

Martin: I like the sincerity of [our eventual band name] even if it does sound like a law firm. It says who we are. It was [guitarist/singer] Oren Bloedow who came up with the idea of using our names. Medeski likes the name now. He’s talking about coming back as Coltrane’s Wig. He’s talked to me about it and I don’t think it’s such a great idea. I even talked to John Lurie about it and he’s like, “This is not a good thing.” Why is saying this now? I wonder if he was trying to sabotage us or something. [Laughs.]

In the early ‘90s, the band began playing electric at East Village clubs like the original Knitting Factory on Houston and CBGB’s gallery space. None of the venues had a piano.

Medeski: We did a tour and at that point there were hardly any pianos any more in the clubs and, if there were, they were shit. And for me, playing a digital piano is a lot like sex with a condom. People use them now and that’s great, but I just need that connection. I had played organ before and it made sense.

Wood: I remember the first gig where we were going to use organ and John didn’t even have a B3 yet. He was using this Korg organ which still had a great sound even though it wasn’t a B3. It was something he’d been playing and knew how to get a lot of amazing sounds out of it. So we booked this gig at the Knitting Factory and up to that point we had been doing acoustic piano stuff like on Notes From the Underground. So basically we had to write a whole set of music for that gig and a lot of that music ended up on It’s a Jungle in Here. We wrote “Beeah,” title track and others. It was a turning point because we realized we had this sound with the organ.

John Scofield (guitarist): When I first heard them, I definitely thought they were in similar area to me. To me, they really put together a lot of stuff that I loved and was trying to put together myself. I played in the fusion years, but I really loved the James Brown kind of funk. I really loved R&B, and I really heard an awareness of that. And I like playing free, so when I heard these guys I thought, “Wow, this is interesting.” These were people I could really play with.

Trey Anastasio (Phish guitiarist): The first time I saw them was in the small space that used to be attached to CBGB’s. It must have been in the early ‘90s. They were playing some incredibly deep, tightly woven and entirely out music. It was the furthest thing from dance music. It was atmospheric and rhythmically layered; I loved it. Everyone was sitting down and it was really quiet and weird. The drum set was a strange mixture of African drums and a traditional trap kit. They had an upright bass, but it wasn’t traditional jazz, and the keyboards didn’t sound like anything I had ever heard before. I’m not even sure they had songs back then. I remember thinking it sounded like wind at one point.

Wood: For us, it made perfect sense to have a bass player and an organ player. That’s what Bob Marley had – a bass player and an organ player who played clavinet. Booker T. and the MGs were organ based but had a great bassist. There is plenty of great organ music that has bass, too. We didn’t just think of ourselves as a jazz trio or an organ trio until we started reading about it in the press.

Marc Ribot (guitarist): I think some – or all – of the lads were staying at Sim Cain’s loft on Ave. A and 7th St. I was walking by on my way to rehearsal and I could hear this music coming out Sim’s window – MMW must have been rehearsing. I remember that they were playing this really fierce groove. Anyway, I went to my rehearsal, played about three hours, had some lunch, sat around and then walked home about four hours later. And when I walked by Sim’s window, they were still playing that same groove. And I thought, “Man, these guys are doing it right.”

Whereas many up-and-coming New York-based jazz musicians tend stick to around the city gigging and doing studio sessions, MMW hit the road.

Martin: At first, we were in the Brown Booger, which was my brown 14-passenger Dodge van. Then John announced that his dad would co-sign a loan for an RV and the next day we were driving back to Atlanta with me following the RV in the van. We gave the van to a guy in Atlanta who fixed one of John’s keyboards or gave him one – something like that. We didn’t need to sleep on anyone’s floor. We didn’t need to stay in hotels. We were together so much that we didn’t even need apartments in New York at this point. We’d live in Hawaii when we weren’t on the road.

Dickinson: They rolled into Memphis and Oxford, Miss. in their RV and it turned out we had mutual friends. They were instantly interesting, friendly and welcoming. It felt like we were fast friends. Soon after that Cody and I rolled into NYC and played the Lakeside Lounge and they all showed up, which was so cool of them.

Medeski: If we could get 50 people to come and see us in every college town, we would be working all month doing that. We’d do this rather than have to play in 25 different bands. Or you’d have to play weddings. When I left Boston, I threw out my tux and told myself I’m not going to play weddings any more. There’s nothing wrong with that because live music is great no matter what, but I really wanted to try and do my music. But truth be told I still did a few weddings with friends: When Oren Bloedow and Billy Martin are playing it, how am I going to say no?

Wood: Nobody was doing what we were doing at that time – traveling around in a van playing that kind of music. We were definitely a weird anomaly, which kept things interesting. There was no roadmap to tell us how to do things so everything was improvised – both our careers and lives. We were making it up as we went along.

Steve Bernstein (trumpeter): I remember being on the [music from Robert Altman’s film] Kansas City tour and the guys in the band saying, “Your friends in MMW, man, they are really doing it.” I told them, “You don’t understand what they did. They were all sidemen. They gave up their apartments to tour and that’s how they got to where they are now.” That was some brave shit.

Martin managed the band early on because he had some experience running a band, knew how to make press kits and silk screen t-shirts. As demands on the band grew, CBGB’s CB Gallery booker Liz Penta came on as the band’s tour manager before becoming its full-time manager.

Liz Penta: (band manager): I was looking to get some tour management experience. In the classic MMW way, they couldn’t pay me but I really wanted the experience. Within a few months they asked me to manage them. I had no experience, but neither did they so we grew this thing together.

Martin: Liz wanted to leave CB’s at the time we were doing that four-month tour. She wanted to go out and learn some of the parts of the business. Then we get out on the road and she and John fall in love with each other. That was a big turning point in the dynamics of the band. Liz was really taking over the business like the mother figure; then she was having an affair with one of the boys. I always thought it was an incestuous thing. Because we all loved each other, we all believed that it could work out. But I being the “no” guy, I thought it was it was wrong and getting in the way. That was the true test, to go through the relationship and the break up. If we could get through this, we could get through anything.

*When not touring, the band would retreat to the Big Island of Hawaii to a humble abode they called “The Shack.” They rented it from their friend Carl Green who came up with the many of the band’s song titles as well as the album titles including End of the World Party (Just in Case) and Last Chance to Dance Trance (Perhaps). *

Wood: It was like Lord of the Flies. We were on this island together living in a shack and we had to survive. Luckily, we had a great chemistry – we were good at taking roles so we could just get things done. I was more of the organizer who would keep things in order and I was the guy that always started the fire in the morning. Billy was good at fixing things and was also good with the recording technology and a visual artist. John was creative but on a daily basis he was the master chef. The stuff we ate in Hawaii were some of the best meals of our lives.

Liz Penta: (band manager): The Big Island is definitely more rough and tumble. They were on the Puna side of the island, which is jungle. It is not easy living. This isn’t sit on the beach and drink cocktails. No electricity, no running water. They had a rain attachment but sometimes you go through droughts. No refrigerator. We used a cooler and got ice every other day and hoped we could keep food fresh.

It was under these rather Spartan conditions that the band decided to record its fourth album, Shack-man, in 1996.

Martin: Medeski was really nervous about it because the label had given us a $30,000 advance. He felt really obligated to make them happy. To me it seemed obvious: you find a really great location where you feel comfortable, that has good sound, and then record there.

Medeski: The sound of the shack was incredible, like nowhere else. We wanted to figure out a way how to capture it. We got solar powered batteries and we brought out [engineer/producer] David Baker. It was epic. We borrowed an organ from a dentist in Hilo. We talked to him a little bit, I played it and we asked him. We drove off with a B3 and Leslie cabinet in the back of a pick-up truck. He didn’t know who we were or where we were going, but we brought it back after we used it on the record.

Martin: Ants were taking over David’s DAT machine; we could only record for four hours at a time. Then we realized that the solar panels weren’t charging the batteries fast enough so a friend brought over a WWII generator to charge them. It took about four hours to charge. So we would do two sessions a day and that’s how it went for a week or more. I felt terrible that John was losing his mind, finally melting down on “Strance of the Spirit Red Gator.” I remember a part where he was almost crying, but I felt confident that it would turn out okay.

Medeski: I remember this night where we were doing this improvisation on “Strance of the Spirit Red Gator” and I was literally losing my mind. I was feeling that this was the worst thing I’d ever done, I’m a piece of crap. We’re never gonna get a record done. As it turns out, in the end, it was one of my favorite things that we’ve ever recorded. The music was flowing but I just wasn’t trusting of it.

The band returned to New York City and set up a series of Monday night jam sessions – “Shack Parties” – at the Knitting Factory’s TriBeca location which saw various guests sitting in each week.

DJ Logic: (turntablist/DJ): The first time I played with them was during the Shack Parties they did at the Knitting Factory. They wanted to create a whole vibe for the night, so they invited different DJs to play before them and during the set break. I didn’t really know what to expect, so I brought a bunch of different records I thought their crowd would like. I don’t think there was initially a plan for me to play with them – just DJ during the breaks. I was set up on the floor while they were on the stage. At some point, they started an improv groove which reminded me of the breakbeat sample stuff I was playing and they had me join in.

One thing that really stuck with me from that night was their crowd. They were there late on a Monday night allowing the band to experiment and take risks and gave the band so much energy to feed off of. Some of the people I met in that room remain some of my best friends.

MMW cut A Go Go with John Scofield in 1997. The album propelled both the guitarist and the band to new levels of popularity.

Scofield: Their first couple of records were on Gramavision and then I heard Shack-man and I thought to myself, “These guys have really gotten great.” That was when I called them up. For some reason, nobody had any of their numbers but I got this number that they had set up for fans to leave messages on. It was before websites and before the Internet. They thought it was a joke when I called. Eventually they called back a few weeks later.

Martin: He was open to doing writing together or whatever. There was a certain amount of reverence, particularly coming from John. So we all decided that he would write the material and we would arrange it. I felt that we were going to play the way we’re going to play, so it didn’t really matter who wrote it. We had a couple of rehearsals and it just felt really easy. It’s easy to play with him, so when we got into the studio is was just a breeze.

Medeski: I don’t really remember anything from the session.

Wood: I think the reason [Medeski] doesn’t remember anything from the session was because of how easy it was. It was the most effortless thing. We got together with him and he’d written some charts. We played them; he liked it. It was easy. We hardly had to talk about the music. He gave us a lot of freedom to interpret the charts the way we wanted to. He wanted us to be ourselves and do our thing. There were maybe two or three takes of each song and that was that.

Scofield: What was so amazing was that I wrote these tunes and then got together with them. When we played them, they were fully formed because [MMW] play so well together. They made room for me on guitar, so it seemed to work right away.

After three albums on Gramavision, the band went shopping for a new record label. After being courted by 17 labels, they eventually signed to Blue Note in 1998.

Bruce Lundvall: (former Blue Note president): I loved the band from the beginning – their first album – and I chased them all over the West Coast once I got the OK to sign them. I saw them in San Francisco and Los Angeles and I tried to sign them for a long time. Finally, they said yes.

Medeski: Bruce Lundvall was the first to come to us in the bidding war. And he was a real music guy. We met with some people and it was just shocking how few there were. Whenever I sat with Bruce – which wasn’t often but it did happen – and we listened to music, his eyes were closed and we listened to music; not talking over it about something else.

Lundvall: They didn’t want to be labeled as jazz so I told them that we wouldn’t label them at all. They’d be Medeski Martin and Wood and that’s it, which was fine.

Martin: I hated that time. I was the first one to say we needed to make a CD, shop it around, make press kits, call the clubs and get gigs. The bidding war was kind of cool, but then I began to sense this slimy shit that happens when people can smell money. Liz knew everyone from working at CB’s Gallery and she was getting a lot of great advice from friends who helped out. But, at the same time, some of them wanted to sign us and I hated it. These people were so full of themselves. They were so sure of themselves about what we needed to do to get to the next level, be it telling us we needed to get a singer or whatever. Donny Ienner of Columbia/Sony wouldn’t ever look at me; he wouldn’t look at you in the eye because he was too busy. Bruce Lundvall was like family.

Lundvall: They had an adventurous nature, a musicality to them and they way the integrated different things meant that they had a different style of their own. That was the thing that got to me. I remember in LA they did a version of “Fungii Mama,” a piece written and played by Blue Mitchell who recorded for Blue Note in the ‘60s. I told them they needed to record that, but they never did. I always held it against them. They would have had a hit.

All three had different points of view but a common goal and a vision and they were doing it beautifully. There was a high level of playing but they were rhythmically relatable to younger audiences. That was very appealing to me, actually. That young people were dancing and people were crowding into a ballrooms to hear this music that was all instrumental was fabulous.

As the band’s popularity grew outside the jazz/experimental/ underground community, it started to see a whole new crop of fans drawn to the long exploratory interplay and ferocious grooves.

Penta: Phish started playing MMW’s records during their set breaks. They somehow had got the albums and become big fans of the band unbeknownst to the band who didn’t know who they were. Then Trey started talking about them in interviews. Then we started seeing these T-shirts at the shows that had the BMW logo and they said, “MMW: ‘Music that makes me want to drive too fast,’” which is a quote by Trey [from Phish’s Doniac Schvice newsletter]. Then people were selling them and we were like, “Wait a minute. Who is this band?” We eventually met them and formed a friendship.

Martin: It was like a love-hate relationship with these new fans. They didn’t know how to dance. I would look out there and wonder what they were doing. I’d be playing some hardcore beats and nobody was shaking their ass. Instead they’d be twirling around like a whirling dervish or hula hooping and juggling. I didn’t see how it was connecting or participating in the music. But at the same time, that’s their culture, that’s how they participate. I didn’t understand it. Sometimes it made me angry.
Wood: It was always interesting because we were coming from a completely different place. We thought that we were up there onstage conjuring up Sun Ra, Mingus, West African stuff, Duke Ellington, Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix. But then we’d be playing for this young sort of hippie crowd and they’d be thinking Trey or Jerry Garcia. They would have a whole different background of music. They were attracted to our approach to playing but it was just surreal that they were seeing the music the same way we were seeing it. It was very strange to get the attention that we were getting but for a reason that were not able to relate to at all. So it was a combination of being incredibly grateful that people were showing up to our shows, but being really confused by what they saw in us. There was a long period of that and we eventually gave up trying to figure it out. It was a little surreal there for a while. To a certain degree, I think this probably happens with just about any band. They think they are doing one thing and people hear another. Ultimately, it doesn’t even matter.

Penta: At one point, we got a little sad when it seemed that the old audience had been pushed out but then we realized that it was great to do what we wanted to do and have the support of a large audience who appreciated what we were doing.

Wood: It became this weird challenge once we realized what it was that they liked. All of the sudden you have this choice to cater to it or not, so suddenly your music becomes a little more self-conscious. It’s inevitable I think. Suddenly you’re questioning every decision you make: Am I doing that because they want that or am I doing it because I know they don’t want that?

After the more straightforward grooves of the Gramavision material, the band took its music in a more experimental and studio savvy direction under Blue Note.

Medeski: We signed with Blue Note and it was the first time we had a decent budget. That was where we really started to pull in, in terms of the studio, hip-hop and popular music on how we approach things. David Baker came back and then Scotty Hard came in [to produce]. “Hey-Hee-Hi-Ho” was where we first started really using the studio.

Martin: Baker did half of Combustication and Scotty did half. Then, as Scotty started to permeate, we started to do more sound manipulation stuff. Scotty was coming out of Wu-Tang Clan and Prince Paul and I loved that stuff. John was turning into Jimi Hendrix with all his stuff. So we were definitely using the studio more as another instrument than ever before. It influenced our writing, playing and sound.

*The band continued its Blue Note run after Combustication with the acoustic Tonic and the innovative and surreal The Dropper in 2000.

Medeski: We had been opening for a lot of people and playing a lot of loud rock shows. We had just opened for Dave Matthews for five nights. We needed something that was just the opposite of gigantic places where you needed to be really loud. Let’s play [the now defunct downtown club] Tonic with no microphones and acoustic piano. Our friend set up a pair of stereo mics and he had great equipment in front of the band. We went back to listen to it and decided to make a record out of it after the fact.

Wood: We wanted to break away from some of that stuff to different hardcore influences. Stuff that was a little edgier. That is when we made The Dropper. We were looking to find more current things in harder core rock and roll. There was a certain point where we were covering PJ Harvey songs. We were just looking for influences beyond classic jazz, ‘60s rock and R&B and Bob Marley.

Medeski: Combustication was our biggest selling record to date at that point and we figured we’d just put our noses down and try and be creative: To play what we are feeling and what we are surrounded with. Scotty Hard [produced] that record. He wanted us to make our Sgt. Pepper’s. Almost everything is played live on that, but it was the way it was mixed that makes it sound so weird. When we mixed it we really treated it like a hip-hop record or something more contemporary. We edited things together and we brought Ribot in to do some stuff. Scotty did an amazing job on it.

Martin: With the opening track, “We Are Rolling,” we were in this basement in Brooklyn and we were finally sitting down and making a record. There was this explosion of energy that was like this punk rock, fuck you energy. What came out I thought was so beautiful, I felt like it was such a strong statement of what we were right then. I wanted it to be the opening song and we went back and forth. John wasn’t sure because he thought we would get dropped if we opened with that song. Commercially, maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to do but it defined who we were. I didn’t hear one complaint from the label until people realized that we weren’t going to sell as many records as the one before. That just made me feel better about it.

Lundvall: I was really happy with the albums they made for us. They always made money for us and did very well for us. They decided to do their own thing so we parted ways, but we are still on extremely friendly terms. I’d love to have them back on Blue Note, that’s for sure.

Penta: Everybody thought that The Dropper was a drug reference. MMW never names their records or their songs until the night before they have to deliver them. It’s really infuriating as their manager. I will be hounding them in the eleventh hour for this information. I guess it’s hard to name instrumental songs. They were convinced that the record was really challenging and that the label would drop them when they heard it. So the band referred to it as The Dropper and the name stuck.
The band amicably parts way with Blue Note after 2004’s End of the World Party (Just in Case) and reunites with Scofield for Out Louder, the first album on the band’s own Indirecto label.

Medeski: We kept talking with Scofield and saying that we needed to do something else because we never toured behind that other record. This time, we wanted to do it as a full collaboration because the last one was his tunes. We had Scotty do the production again.

Scofield: After A Go Go they were really busy and had really become famous. For a couple of years we did a bunch of festival gigs because people really liked A Go Go. Then I noticed that that stuff would get on another level from my songs. The idea for Out Louder was to take it to another place. So we primarily wrote that music together by jamming. We did one day, and I think this was Medeski’s idea, where we played completely free at their studio in Brooklyn. We did like three 40-minute pieces that were not preconceived. Then we took those and reconstructed sections of them and turned them into tunes. And there are a few excerpts from those jams that made it onto the album. I also brought in a tune or two, and Chris brought in a tune and we recorded “Julia” by The Beatles and the Peter Tosh tune “Legalize It.” We also did three tunes that were multi-layered and overdubbed. We started with just a drum track and then built stuff around it.

*The band moves its Shacklyn Studio upstate and begins work on the Radiolarians project which it delivers in 2008 and 2009. Separately released at various times as three separate CDs, Radiolarians is eventually repackaged into a 5 CD-boxed set with vinyl and a DVD.

Medeski: We are just finding a way to stay inspired. The idea was to do seasonal touring, write all new material and record it right after we got back so we have rehearsed.

Martin: It was John’s idea to do seasonal music, to get together for a few days and try to develop the seeds of these ideas. Then the pressure is on: you realize that, “Oh shit, we are really doing this. We have three days to get together two sets of music and play it in front of an audience.” There were definitely butterflies. You get nervous, which is good because it means that you care.

Wood: We were really looking for a way to force ourselves to write a bunch of new music. It definitely worked. It was what we used to do when we were younger and then our lives got complicated. Everyone got married, had kids, mortgages and stuff. It just got harder to find time to hang out together in a room and work on music.

This year the band toured Colorado and the West Coast in the spring and has a bunch of New York area dates in the summer. After a summer tour with saxophonist Bill Evans and trumpeter Randy Brecker, the trio will head out again in the fall

Medeski: The recent tour was a blast. The second sets revisited the Shack Party idea. We would just improvise and play groovy stuff. In certain towns, we had people join in – Ralph Carney sat in in San Francisco, he’s one of our favorites who has played with Ribot, Tom Waits and others. We had this baritone clarinet quartet in Los Angeles who opened for us and came up and jammed. Kyle Gass from Tenacious D sat in on recorder with us.

Wood: The audience voted on Facebook and made our first set, forcing us to learn a bunch of older material, some stuff we had never played live before and other stuff we hadn’t played in a long time. Then we have an improvised Shack Party during the second set, so that will be sort of a groove-oriented improvised set. That was good, too. It was kind of the best of both worlds.

Martin: The idea of letting the fans pick the setlist was something we would wince at back in the day, but it actually turned out to be really fun. A lot of people have been coming out. We are not playing huge venues but we aren’t playing super small ones either. The love is there and we have new fans and old fans, plus the relationship with the band is better than ever.

It all comes down to chemistry (conclusion).

Penta: I call them Yes, No and Maybe. John is yes. Billy is no, and Chris is maybe. [Laughs.] John has a lot of trouble saying no to anyone and he means it, but he can’t do it all because he can’t. Chris is a thinker. It takes him a while to deliberate. He spends a lot of time in solitude practicing and thinking. Billy wants to do a lot too, but he’s very discerning. If he doesn’t want to do something, he’s very clear and forthright. It’s the dynamic of who they are and it works.

Wood: They are still two of my favorite musicians. The guys are just incredible. They still have a lot of new stuff to offer, so it is definitely never dull. I never get bored with MMW, it’s a challenge.

Scofield: The ingredients they have together make them special. They can groove, but they can play free – and they are committed to playing free. It’s a philosophical commitment to spontaneity. Certainly in the jamband world, very few bands have maintained that and the ones that have the spontaneity can’t back it up with chops. [MMW] are jazz-based musicians who are real improvisers. It’s what separates them from the rest of the jamband world for sure.

Ribot: Nothing has changed [with them since we first met]: they’re totally fun to hang with and to play live with. They remained committed to a large amount of improvisation in their set long after the point where other bands would have given in to shtick. They don’t view people sitting in as an interruption, but just as an opportunity.

Anastasio: The thing about MMW is that time will only make them better. That’s one of the benefits of playing for many years in a group that improvises and really listens. The music gets deeper as a result of shared experience. It just has to. I want to see MMW play on the night of their fiftieth anniversary. By the time they’re in their eighties, they could be like the Modern Jazz Quartet.