by Bob Makin

Together nearly 10 years, keyboardist John Medeski, drummer Billy Martin and bassist Chris Wood recently released their ninth and most experimental album, "The Dropper," an ill-ient mix featuring such special guests as downtown New York guitarist Marc Ribot, Sun Ra sax great Marshall Allen,

Afro-Cuban percussion legend Eddie Bobe and jazz/classical violinist Charlie Burnham. A follow-up to the completely opposite-sounding acoustic live effort, "Tonic," released earlier this year, "The Dropper" is a continuation of the 1998 "Combustication" collaboration with DJ Logic.

MMW will tour through mid-December behind "The Dropper." For more information about the band and its various side projects and independent label endeavors, visit www.mmw.net. In the meantime, enjoy the following chat with Wood.

What is "The Dropper?"

    We just picked a name that means a lot of different things. It's not too specific. We did start to joke in the studio as the record was developing in weird directions that this would be the one that would get us dropped from the record label. But it's also a term used in a lot of different ways, like to drop beats or to drop a bomb in a musical sense. But it's really just ambiguous and can go in a lot of different directions.

Comment on how the band's marriage of rock and jazz also has included hip-hop and ambient techno sounds since 1998's "Combustication" collaboration with DJ Logic. How has that direction been enjoyable and interesting for you?

   Well, it's been enjoyable and interesting in that it's just been different and challenging. We're always listening to new records, either getting turned onto new things or old things things that are new to us but have been around for years. We like to keep things fresh and developing. We don't want do the same old thing all the time. We'll get bored and the people will get bored. We like to keep it interesting. We do that with the types of venues we play too. It'll be an intimate club or a gigantic outdoor shed.     That's one of the reasons we released 'Tonic,' which was totally more of an acoustic jazz record, within the same year as we released 'The Dropper.' That's completely in the opposite direction. For us, it's a dream come true to have that happen all in the same year.

Did you pick Wu-Tang Clan producer Scotty Hard in the hopes that he'd bring a strong hip-hop element? How do you feel about the results?

   We hired him as engineer, but it's just the way it works out when you create a record. We all produced it together. It was good for us to have someone who we could trust their tastes as an engineer. It was good for us to have an objective perspective. That's what he adds. It's good to have someone to tell you to keep what's great or try something different. Of course, he has a certain history with this type of music that he's worked with in a really adventurous way.  It was great because a lot of the tunes changed when we got to mixing time. We were still composing right through that. We'd create whole new sections of music by dropping things out and bringing them back in again.   

Whether the electric jazz of 'The Dropper' or the acoustic jazz of "Tonic,' I love the way you're able to come up with some completely modern-sounding like 'We Are Rolling,' yet also get into a rich Jimmy Smith-like vibe on 'Philly Cheese Blunt.' Comment on how you stay true to modern jazz's roots while taking it where no jazz has gone before.

   We've been playing together coming up on 10 years. I think it's a lot harder to get that feeling when you've just thrown a band together with different musicians who have not played together before. But when you're a band that's toured  and lived and played together and developed together and seen each other grow, you just know how to read each other pretty well. We now how anticipate some of the things we're going to do. We improvise well together and have created our own sound over the years so it doesn't matter if it's more rock, hip-hop or jazz, it's still us and always will be.      

I'm surprised you don't have DJ Logic on here. I guess that proves that you can make some pretty far-out sounds without him.

   Yeah. We have plenty of sounds for sure. With Logic, it was great to have him and we did our thing with him and since then, he's moved on with his own band and he's touring. We see him and sometimes he sits in with us. He's a good friend and a such sweetheart. We love him. It's great to see him off doing his own thing. It feels good that we could help him in that way. But it was enough. A DJ is a very specific thing. A lot of people, it doesn't matter what they're playing, see a DJ and think hip-hop. It has that certain reference to a certain genre, but it's fun to play with him and stretch that preconception people have about a DJ. We did that with him, but it was time to move on and do something different. But playing with him inspired us in certain ways to fill in the cracks of our music with different textures.

You have a bunch of great special guests on 'The Dropper.' Comment on the contributions that really knocked you out.    

    Marc Ribot is always amazing. He just came in for three hours one day and did tons of great stuff. He added a lot. Marshall Allen was the alto player with Sun Ra. He's a hero of ours and Sun Ra was a big hero of ours. It was an honor to have him. Eddie Bobe played congas on 'Felic.' He's a great Afro-Cuban drummer. The string players were great. (Violinist) Charlie Burnham blew me away. He nailed everything in one take. We already had recorded as a trio so he walked in and improvised with it. I don't know how he did it. He was playing figures I'd never heard before. And I love the strings on the last track with the string section.

Besides Burnham, they include cellist Jane Scarpantoni, who's played with R.E.M.  Yeah, she's also played with The Lounge Lizards and is part of the downtown music scene. She plays rock 'n' roll and avant garde. She's great on that last tune, 'Norah 6,' which is a tribute to contemporary classical composer, Penderecki, from Poland. He's been a big influence on us. We listen to him a lot when we're touring in the van.

Are y'all partial to Philly cheese steaks? Is that where 'Philly Cheese Blunt' comes from or is that a tribute to Marshall Allen and Sun Ra, they're being from Philadelphia?

   It's more of a Philly cheese steak reference. That's a Billy Martin title. He went through a period where he was really into Philly cheese steaks. He still gets the occasional one.

How has being on Blue Note lent credibility to the band and how has the band lent credibility to Blue Note?

   We felt lucky to be part of that heritage and be attached to the Blue Note name. It has an amazing catalog and history. We felt we could be the next wave of that. Because we're living in the year 2000, not the '40s and '50s, jazz sounds different, especially when you're truly improvising. You have the influence of all music that's happened, including hip-hop, rock 'n' roll and all current types of music, not to mention other modern music and jazz, contemporary  classical music. We're influenced by all those things and it just comes out naturally.

    There's only one tune on the record where we were conscious about the way it was going to sound because it's a tribute to a certain genre. 'Illinization' is a tribute to Varese, a contemporary classical composer and percussionist who wrote a piece called 'Ionization.' Billy wanted to do something inspired by that.   

Comment on the recent tour with Bela Fleck & the Flecktones and how that's such a great double bill.

    That was fun. The whole summer was fun. We did some nice gigs by ourselves, then we had a run with Dave Matthews Band and then the Bela thing. We played some gigantic places and some intimate places. That's what keeps it interesting for us.   

With the live shows you'll be doing through November, how much material is from 'The Dropper' versus your other eight albums?

   The album is still pretty fresh for us, unlike in the past where we make a record and it gets released while we're already touring with other material. We have yet to do a tour with 'Dropper' music so it will be fun for us to do live versions of those songs. We don't really know what we're going to do. It'll be different night to night. Every venue is different and lends itself to a different  way of playing. The tour will mainly be 'Dropper' music, but we'll throw in some old things, I'm sure, and some new things that are not even on 'The Dropper.'   

How much of the trippy sounds on tunes like 'We Are Rolling' and 'The Dropper' are you able to recreate live?

   It's going to be different. Both those tunes were improvisations and weren't written down. It'll be different night to night depending on the tune. With 'The Dropper,' we've got Marc Ribot playing guitar so we're going to try to bring him on some of the tour.  We're still working that out. We'd also like to bring out a percussionist on some of the things, like 'Felic.' That needs a great conga player.

 Tell me about your project with Karl Denson. How did it come together and where is it going?

   He just called me to do a record last February. It was more of a groove record. One of the tunes on there we did as a duet. That gave him the idea to do a duet record. I have no idea what his plans are with recordings. We're just figuring it out now.

John and Billy also have a bunch of side projects, as well as independent record  labels that they're involved with. Comment on how you guys are involved in so many things, yet manage to keep MMW the priority. What is it about playing together that always returns you to the mothership?

   I think we've managed to make sure there's enough variety in the MMW world to keep things interesting. It's enough of an outlet to feel creatively satisfied. We don't have to start another band because there's things we never get to do with MMW. None of us feel that way. We respect each other musically enough to go in different directions that the others want to go in.

    But it's really important to do things outside the band because every time we do, we learn something new that brings something fresh to the group. Even if the gig is totally a disaster, we come back to MMW saying, 'Thank God, I'm back here playing with my friends.' It's an amazing experience to come back to one another with music to turn each other onto or a new way of playing that might inspire something new in the group. We always do that. When we're so busy with MMW, we start to feel stifled and stagnant, then we chill out and schedule enough things to do outside the band.  

I noticed you play a 'baby bass' on 'The Dropper.' What's a baby bass?

A lot of the Latin guys use them for salsa. It's an upright bass made of fiberglass and smaller than the acoustic bass, more portable. But it's the same idea. It looks like a mini acoustic bass.

Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker who made 'The Civil War' and 'Baseball,' has a 10-part, 19-hour documentary coming up on PBS. I noticed that Medeski, Martin and Wood and your jazz peers weren't included in the program. It seems to go no further than Wynton Marsalis and Cassandra Wilson. For what it's worth, I don't think there's any act in jazz today that's more about the future of jazz than Medeski, Martin and Wood. Given that, how does it make you feel that you weren't include in 'Jazz'?    

I'm not surprised by it at all. Jazz has become another four-letter word to describe something that people aren't sure what it is. People then latch labels on things. Some people consider the classic Blue Note and Columbia recordings jazz and they come up with different types of names for more current forms of improvisation: jam bands, acid jazz. It's all labels. Nobody knows what to call anything anymore. I could see when you're making a documentary, where do you draw the line? The spirit of jazz is improvising as opposed to having it worked out like pop music. So it's a fuzzy gray line. But I'm not surprised.

What jazz artist has been the greatest influence on you?

I'd have to say Charles Mingus. He was probably the greatest bass player and composer. He influenced me in a lot of ways. Then, of course, if you trace back his roots, the influence is Duke Ellington and his great bass player, Jimmy Blanton. There was a certain spirit Mingus had. He was really tapped into the roots but super adventurous in the avant garde scene. So he had such a rootsy, bluesy feeling, but at the same time, he was exploring all boundaries. He was an inspiration for me.

Bob Makin is an entertainment writer with Gannett New Jersey/New York Newspapers. Jam bands can send him info at makinclan@aol.com and material to Courier News, P.O. Box 6600, Bridgewater, NJ 08807.