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Medeski, Martin & Wood + Nels Cline: Medeski, Martin & Wood + Nels Cline: Woodstock Sessions, Vol. 2
ByWoodstock Sessions, Vol. 2 ain't any of that, however, though Cline's tremolo-driven guitar on the closing "Cinders" certainly speaks to his rootsier tendencies, despite Wood's percussion being more textural than propulsive, and Medeski's similarly tremelo'd Fender Rhodes creating a more ambient cushion. And by the end of the five-minute piece, everyone has transcended any such categorization into a place of even greater freedom, with Wood's upper register slide bass guitar and Cline's even more stratospherically electro-processed guitar harmonics drawing the 63-minute collective improvisation, performed live in front of a studio audience, to a surprisingly soft close.
Cline also channels his inner King Crimson on the frenetically driven "Mezcal," though the rapid-picked blue notes are more John Scofield than Robert Fripp, and his mid-piece solo on the free-rock of "Arm & Leg" alludes to a Hendrix brought into the new millennium with the kinds of effects about which the long-gone guitar legend could only have dreamed. But truthfully, all such comparisons are both academic and moot; Cline may be the sum total of a massive number of touchstones, but at the end of the day, their confluenceand his ability to shift gears melodically, texturally and harmonically at the drop of a hathas made him as instantly recognizable and impossible to copy as those he considers to be his heroes.
If Cline is a new guitar hero for the 21st Century, then the same goes for the members of MMW: the trio may have brought the term "jam band" to jazz when it first emerged in the '90s with groove-heavy albums like Friday Afternoon in the Universe (Gramavision, 1995) and Shack-Man (Gramavision, 1996), but a lot has happened since then, as all three band members have stretched beyond anything their early recordings might have suggested possible. The trio continues to groove deeply, to be sure, on albums like the live Scofield collaboration In Case the World Changes Its Mind (Indirecto, 2011), but has proven just as likely to explore the broadest and furthest reaches of improvisational exploration on its to-date magnum opus, the aptly titled RadiolariansThe Evolutionary Set (Indirecto, 2009), where the trio brought in music from far and wide to continue the modus operandi of the box set's title.
There's a lot of noise, jagged edges and hard surfaces on Woodstock Sessions, Vol. 2; at times, reminiscent of Norway's Supersilent but with a stronger attention to pulse. Medeski may well be the broadest, most versatile American equivalent this side of Supersilent's Ståle Storløkken, his even larger arsenal of analog keyboards evoking distant memories of '60s Farfisa organs on "Bonjour Beze," but only just before a frenzied synth solo that's held to ground by Martin and Wood's firm but still shifting anchor. Cline responds to Medeski in kind, creating harsh, jagged sounds that were never really meant to come from a guitar but, for a guitarist who includes things like egg beaters and small fans in his arsenal, continually finds new ways to expand his instrument's tonal and textural potential.
It's a set that may not be for the faint-of-heart; even when Martin & Wood create a visceral, funkified pulse on "Looters," Cline's supersonic guitar histrionicsat one point sounding even sicker than Jeff Beck at the end of "You Shook Me," from the seminal British guitarist's 1968 Epic debut, Truthsends them places they'd simply never have gone otherwise.
Still, nobody ever said that Cline would make things easy. If Scofield's collaborations with MMW have brought out their inner groove-meisters, then Woodstock Sessions, Vol. 2 finds the decade-long Wilco guitarist encouraging the trio to go to musical places no one has truly gone before. It may be a roller coaster of a listen but it's still somehow a strangely attractive one, especially when experienced old school, as a whole rather than a set of nine individual tracks. The only thing left to wonder, after experiencing the mind-stretching, at times psychedelic and otherworldly Woodstock Sessions, Vol. 2 is: where the heck is Vol. 1, guys?
Track Listing
Doors of Deception; Bonjour Beze; Mezcal; Les Blank; Jade; Looters; Conebranch; Arm & Leg; Cinders.
Personnel
Medeski Martin & Wood
band / ensemble / orchestraJohn Medeski: keyboards, Billy Martin: drums, percussion; Chris Wood: bass; Nels Cline: guitar.
Album information
Title: Medeski, Martin & Wood + Nels Cline: Woodstock Sessions, Vol. 2 | Year Released: 2014 | Record Label: The Woodstock Sessions
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About Medeski Martin & Wood
Instrument: Band / ensemble / orchestra
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