Far be it from Medeski Martin & Wood — an avant-jazz trio that has been subverting and twisting jazz genre conventions for close to two decades now — to continue to write, record, tour and follow the well-worn path that most musicians consistently travel. For its latest project, Medeski Martin & Wood turned that formula around, composing songs and honing them on tour before stepping into the studio to record.
The result was The Radiolarian Series, a three-volume undertaking that saw Vol. 1 being released in September 2008, Vol. 2 in April, and Vol. 3 in August. Now, all three have been released together, alongside a wealth of bonus material as Radiolarians: The Evolutionary Set from Indirecto Records.
Radiolarians refers to a kind of amoeba that grows a mineral skeleton around itself in a reversal of normal biological order — an apt comparison to Medeski Martin & Wood’s ambitious project that is every bit as intricate as the biological phenomena for which it’s named.
Medeski Martin & Wood offer up an ever-shifting amalgam of sounds on all three Radiolarians records that smoothly transitions from more traditional jazz fare (well, as traditional as these guys get) to gospel, funk, and blues sounds to a wide array of world music — often within the same piece.
Most of the pieces on the three albums have an undeniable live-oriented spontaneity to them that threatens to turn a 90-degree corner at any moment, and it’s on this kind of jam band sound that Medeski Martin & Wood has built its reputation, whether or not the material was conceived or focused in a live environment.
Still, Medeski Martin & Wood never succumbs to the jam band tendency to eventually fade into background music, with all sounds eventually melding into one another to create a pleasant, but hardly aurally arresting, din. Just pick a song at random, and you’ll find enough complexity and genre mash-up to stave off any notion of sameness or monotony. The Radiolarians albums offer more than enough musical evolution to justify the moniker this extensive box set has been given.
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