John Scofield. I was fourteen years old and doing what fourteen year olds in Midland Texas did for fun, hanging out at Midland Park Mall.
Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood – Juice (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/88.2 kHz | Time – 01:03:35 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source:HDTracks | Digital Booklet , Front cover
Label: @ Indirecto Records
When Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood joined forces again to record a new album, they sought common ground and inspiration in the intersection of improvisation and rhythms from the Afro-Latin diaspora. Their kinship both onstage and off has fostered an escalating degree of musical interplay, exquisitely captured on Juice – their third studio effort and fourth album overall.
The third studio meeting in nearly 17 years between Medeski, Martin & Wood and guitarist John Scofield has no easy referent to their earlier recordings — purposely. This quartet sounds like a real band on Juice, which is a mixed blessing. The positive aspect is that this longtime collaboration creates near instinctive communication. This is a much more inside date, though the rhythmic interplay between bassist Chris Wood and drummer Billy Martin is outstanding throughout. There are four covers from the 1960s scattered among the various originals; some work better than others. One is “Sham Time,” an Eddie Harris tune. The obvious inspiration, though, is Willie Bobo’s version from the 1968 album A New Dimension. This quartet does it justice with spark, crackle, groove, and grease. The driving organ vamp on Scofield’s “New London” offers a British rave-up wedded to Brazilian funk and Latin boogaloo. The solos by the guitarist and John Medeski are lyrical, tight, and flow right out of one another. Martin’s “Louis the Shoplifter” is populated with killer interlocking salsa grooves between him and Medeski (who evokes Eddie Palmieri’s experimetnal side in his playing) amid knotty changes. Wood’s bassline develops along the drummer’s pumping, double-time snare and syncopated breaks. Scofield’s solo roils with serpentine post-bop shards. “Juicy Lucy,” a group composition, finds Scofield taking “Louie Louie” as inspiration. Medeski builds on it with excellent montunos, contrasting mid-’60s Latin R&B with early rock & roll. The fingerpopping exchanges between Wood, Martin, and guest conguero Pedrito Martinez are nasty and tight. Wood’s “Helium” is the strangest, perhaps most compelling thing here, comprised of angular harmonies, arpeggiated, nearly fusion-esque statements from guitarist and pianist, and a whomping bassline. Martin’s forro-esque pulse — that borders on the martial — locks it down. The cultural baggage associated with the Doors’ “Light My Fire” is too great for even these musicians to transcend, and with a straight rock chart, it feels tossed off. Conversely, the reading of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love,” at nearly 11 minutes, contains an imaginative arrangement that makes the listener almost forget the original. Martin’s and Wood’s slow, rocksteady reggae groove is downright steamy. Scofield works a spooky blues vamp that unwinds slowly into fragmented solos while Medeski gets swampy on the organ, stating the melody tersely with one hand, and improvising with the other. Finally, engineer Danny Bloom adds a remix with loads of reverb and echo, making it a tripped-out dubwise jam. The guitarist’s funky “Stovetop” is an excellent modernist revisioning of post-tropicalia samba jazz with all members finding plenty of room to move inside it, Martinez’s congas add fand heat. While Juice is mostly engaging and satisfying, the pervasive “let’s just see what happens” approach MSMW took here also has a downside: it delivers a self-contented vibe rather than one of discovery that their previous records revealed in spades. –Thom Jurek, AllMusic
For over two decades, keyboardist John Medeski, percussionist Billy Martin and bassist Chris Wood’s abiding fascination with the endless possibilities of groove-based music has taken them from intimate jazz clubs to outdoor festival stages. Their eclectic efforts have included a number of high-profile collaborations; the most prolific and successful has been with esteemed guitarist John Scofield. Following the concert performances issued as In Case the World Changes Its Mind (Indirecto, 2011), Juice is their fourth album together since 1998’s pace setting A Go Go (Verve).
Where their previous studio recording, Out Louder (Indirecto, 2006), emphasized collaboratively written pieces, this session focuses on individually penned numbers and a handful of choice covers, unified by a concentration on infectious Latin rhythms culled from the African diaspora. This song-oriented approach differs dramatically from the spontaneously conceived free-form structures of Woodstock Sessions, Vol. 2 (Woodstock Sessions, 2014), the trio’s dynamic live-in-the-studio experiment with another equally revered guitarist, Nels Cline.
Juice opens with a buoyant rendition of Eddie Harris’ soul jazz classic “Sham Time,” establishing the date’s celebratory mood and sense of camaraderie from the start, fortified by Scofield’s bluesy lyricism, the shimmering warmth of Medeski’s vintage analog keyboards, Wood’s supple contributions and Martin’s shuffling backbeats. Reinforcing the set’s festive atmosphere, “Juicy Lucy” even borrows the iconic riff from “Louie Louie,” transposing the indelible theme into a slinky Afro-Cuban vamp bathed in a scrim of dancehall reverb.
In addition to a half-dozen original compositions, ranging from the swinging “North London” to the introspective ballad “I Know You,” the record includes three covers of legendary classic rock tunes. Although using post-war era pop songs as source material for jazz improvisation is hardly a novel concept, how creatively such warhorses are reinterpreted often determines their level of artistic merit.
Recast as nostalgic Americana, Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin'” is given a mellow, gospel-inflected reading that sounds downright Frisellian. Their rhapsodic interpretation of The Doors’ “Light My Fire” on the other hand, builds from lite funk to an electrifying climax (courtesy of Scofield’s progressively heated fretwork), but it’s the psychedelic dub deconstruction of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” that is the most impressively reimagined of the three.
Considering its winning combination of tuneful melodies, danceable rhythms and earthy textures, Juice is Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood’s most appealing, cohesive and consistently engaging release to date. –Troy Collins, All About Jazz
Where their previous studio recording, Out Louder (Indirecto, 2006), emphasized collaboratively written pieces, this session focuses on individually penned numbers and a handful of choice covers, unified by a concentration on infectious Latin rhythms culled from the African diaspora. This song-oriented approach differs dramatically from the spontaneously conceived free-form structures of Woodstock Sessions, Vol. 2 (Woodstock Sessions, 2014), the trio’s dynamic live-in-the-studio experiment with another equally revered guitarist, Nels Cline.
Juice opens with a buoyant rendition of Eddie Harris’ soul jazz classic “Sham Time,” establishing the date’s celebratory mood and sense of camaraderie from the start, fortified by Scofield’s bluesy lyricism, the shimmering warmth of Medeski’s vintage analog keyboards, Wood’s supple contributions and Martin’s shuffling backbeats. Reinforcing the set’s festive atmosphere, “Juicy Lucy” even borrows the iconic riff from “Louie Louie,” transposing the indelible theme into a slinky Afro-Cuban vamp bathed in a scrim of dancehall reverb.
In addition to a half-dozen original compositions, ranging from the swinging “North London” to the introspective ballad “I Know You,” the record includes three covers of legendary classic rock tunes. Although using post-war era pop songs as source material for jazz improvisation is hardly a novel concept, how creatively such warhorses are reinterpreted often determines their level of artistic merit.
Recast as nostalgic Americana, Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin'” is given a mellow, gospel-inflected reading that sounds downright Frisellian. Their rhapsodic interpretation of The Doors’ “Light My Fire” on the other hand, builds from lite funk to an electrifying climax (courtesy of Scofield’s progressively heated fretwork), but it’s the psychedelic dub deconstruction of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” that is the most impressively reimagined of the three.
Considering its winning combination of tuneful melodies, danceable rhythms and earthy textures, Juice is Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood’s most appealing, cohesive and consistently engaging release to date. –Troy Collins, All About Jazz
Tracklist:
1 Sham Time 05:46
2 North London 06:36
3 Louis the Shoplifter 06:12
4 Juicy Lucy 07:07
5 I Know You 08:03
6 Helium 04:06
7 Light My Fire 05:37
8 Sunshine of Your Love 10:55
9 Stovetop 05:32
10 The Times They Are A-Changin’ 03:41
1 Sham Time 05:46
2 North London 06:36
3 Louis the Shoplifter 06:12
4 Juicy Lucy 07:07
5 I Know You 08:03
6 Helium 04:06
7 Light My Fire 05:37
8 Sunshine of Your Love 10:55
9 Stovetop 05:32
10 The Times They Are A-Changin’ 03:41
Personnel:
John Medeski: keyboards
John Scofield: guitar
Billy Martin: drums, cuica, talking drum, caxixi and guiro
Chris Wood: bass
John Medeski: keyboards
John Scofield: guitar
Billy Martin: drums, cuica, talking drum, caxixi and guiro
Chris Wood: bass
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A little pre-release goodness for you today; M(S)MW's new album, due out at the end of this month, don't sleep on it, there's some serious groove happening here.http://usenet.fun/3mf5nyjixd26/MedeskiSc0fieldMartinW00dJuice201488.224.part2.rar
It's a match made not above nor below, but rather in some altogether hipper place: John Medeski + Billy Martin + Chris Wood + guitar guru John Scofield. On their new release OUT LOUDER, they make music not of this world, yet rooted in the earth tones of jazz, funk, and blues. Music from the heart, for the mind, and made to shake the earth, not to mention the body.
Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood first recorded together on Scofield's A Go Go (Verve 1998), a disc that has become a must-have classic. That project united jazz guitarist Scofield with the improvisational jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood on material composed by Scofield and interpreted by all four musicians. OUT LOUDER the inaugural release for MMW's own Indirecto Records label is Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood's first four-way collaborative recording. 'A Go Go was John's record and we were essentially sidemen, where OUT LOUDER musically comes from all of us' explains Wood. Scofield adds: 'We've always hit it off as a foursome, and I wanted to see what would happen if we did something that was a true collaboration, where everyone could play completely free.'
Recorded in under a week at Shacklyn, MMW's fabled downtown Brooklyn studio, OUT LOUDER reeks of the scruffy, spirited basement in which it was created. 'Something about being down there made the music that much grungier,' says Wood. 'It gave us that feeling of being a hungry garage band searching for the coolest licks and grooves without worrying about making everything perfect. We could just let it all hang out. Everyone was set up in the same room with all our amps and equipment, and you could feel what everyone else was playing that much better and really react to everything around you.'
That, and the four musician's yen for jazz, funk, rock, soul and reggae, go a long way towards explaining why OUT LOUDER's deep grooves and sophisticated harmonies beg for closer inspection while simultaneously making you want to get up and dance. 'People connect with grooves and funk, they feel it in their gut,' says Medeski. 'We understand complex harmonies, but in the end we know that you don't have to play all those notes to connect with people. The groove and spirit is what connects with people.'
01. Little Walter Rides Again
02. Miles Behind
03. In Case The World Changes Its Mind
04. Tequila And Chocolate
05. Tootie Ma Is A Big Fine Thing
06. Cachaca
07. Hanuman
08. Telegraph
09. What Now
10. Julia
11. Down The Tube
12. Legalize It
MMW's Website
MMW's Myspace Page
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