John Medeski

Location:
NEW YORK, New York, US
Type:
Artist / Band / Musician
Genre:
Jazz / Experimental
Site(s):
Label:
Indirecto Records - US
Type:
Indie
As the keyboardist in the trailblazing instrumental trio Medeski Martin & Wood, solo performer, film composer, and producer, collaborator and sideman with countless other artists, John Medeski has channeled transformative forces with uncanny power and imagination.
A skilled composer and whirling-dervish improviser, he consistently wrings sonic revelations from acoustic and electric piano, Hammond organ, Clavinet, Mellotron, assorted synthesizers and other instruments.
Medeski was born in Kentucky but raised in Florida, starting piano lessons at the tender age of five. He attended New England Conservatory in Boston and studied in the open-ended Third Stream program, which was designed to help artists forge their own style.
Thanks to the intercession of his mentor and jazz luminary, Bob Moses, Medeski landed gigs with the likes of Dewey Redman and the Either/Orchestra; on one of the latter dates he met a fiercely gifted and intuitive young bassist named Chris Wood. Not long thereafter, Medeski and Wood were sharing a New York City apartment, jamming regularly and poring over Medeski’s copious record collection. It took Billy Martin, another Moses referral, to complete the picture. With an impeccable groove feel and grounding in Brazilian and African beats and percussion, Martin enabled Medeski and Wood to play in what the keyboardist calls a “jazz spirit” without being confined by jazzman convention. In 1991, Medeski Martin & Wood was born.
In addition to a spate of adventurous releases embracing acoustic and electric instrumentation, live and studio creation and lively blends of each, Medeski Martin & Wood have constantly expanded their palette -- by collaborating with jazz guitar firebrand John Scofield, backing up artists like R&B sax giant Maceo Parker and glam-punk icon Iggy Pop, building the ingenious, multi-disc compilation Radiolarians: The Evolutionary Set, making a movie (the 2009 band doc Fly in a Bottle, directed by Martin for Radiolarians) and even running a yearly camp for aspiring musicians.
But John Medeski’s restless muse could never be confined to a single enterprise, even one as multifaceted and endlessly experimental as MMW. He co-created The Word, an instrumental gospel project, with Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars, bringing in the latter’s bandmates and steel guitar prodigy Robert Randolph. He’s also thrown down with, among others, award-winning roots maven T Bone Burnett, Peruvian singer Susana Baca, New Orleans soul legend Irma Thomas, former Phish guitarist-frontman Trey Anastasio, Grateful Dead alumnus Phil Lesh, eminent gospel vocal group The Blind Boys of Alabama, trailblazing hip-hop DJ Dan the Automator, singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne, Charlie Hunter’s out-jazz expedition Altitude and rock collective Grizzly Adams; performed extensively and in various styles, from Chicago to Guadalajara, as a solo performer; and fronted the funked-up trio John Medeski & the Itch.
He’s also been active as a producer, helming projects by Chris Wood’s roots-oriented project the Wood Brothers, “sacred steel” family group the Campbell Brothers and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, among others, and as a film composer. His work for the screen includes score music for the features Audrey the Trainwreck (for which the New Yorker praised his “wistful piano), William Vincent, in which he also appears (“The vaguely mischievous, minimalist score by John Medeski,” opined Variety, “is richly atmospheric”), and Day on Fire . His other cinematic work includes a contribution (with erstwhile supergroup the Million Dollar Bashers, featuring members of Television, Wilco and others) to the soundtrack of the celebrated Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There.
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