Sunday, June 10, 2012

MMW&? @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple 5/10/12

It was a phenomenal idea.  One set of MMW, then one set where there is a rotation of each member being substituted with a guest and a final set of MMW with various special guests.  I did dream of having whole shows of 2 of them with a different 3rd and whole shows of duos between the 3 of them.  Like. We have Mago for Martin & Medeski, it would be awesome to see a show of Wood and Martin and another one of Wood and Medeski.

Anyway, I hadn't been to Brooklyn Masonic yet and it took an effort to get to this unfamiliar territory.  I missed the first set which was pure MMW. I heard it was about 40 minutes and great.

It's a wild drink setup there.  First you wait in line to buy a drink ticket for beer, sangria, or water.  Then you go over to the bar to get the drink and give a tip.  The bar is like school auditorium bake sale tables.  I don't drink beer so I got a sangria ticket.  When I got to the bar I was told they were out of sangria.  But, she had vodka and picked up a bag of Dole frozen fruit to show me she still had some fruit.  So I had a vodka soda and fruit and I liked it.

They came on soon after with Anthony Coleman on keys instead of Medeski.  That was probably the most stretched as far as improvised goes.  I enjoyed it.

After about 10 min or so, Chris leaves, John comes back and Billy announces Oren Bloedow on bass.  He also tells us Oren named them back when they were kicking around ideas "why don't you just call yourselves Medeski, Martin, and Wood?" It was an awesome 10 min or so of music.

Then Billy gets up to give his drumming brother, Calvin Weston some time to blow us away.  He started on trumpet then moved to drums and ended back on trumpet.

Now we go around again with Marco Benevento on keys.  This led us to the trippy portion of the evening.  Really, with each combination it was a completely different band all evening long.

Marcus Rojas was listed, but ended up not being able to make it.  They actually got another tuba player, Bob Stewart, to step in.  I've seen Bob play before, so I already knew how impressive he is.  This was the first time Billy and John met Bob.  This part was longer, more like a miniset.  It was awesome and the other more stretchy improv portion of the replacement portion of the evening.

Lastly for this portion, Adam Deitch came up and it got a little funky.  This portion was also longer than others, although not as long as the Bob Stewart part.

Time for another setbreak, about 1/2 hour or longer.

There was one more great set in which various special guests joined MMW til the end.  More special guests - not the same ones from before.  It started with So Percussion, which meant 4 extra percussionists standing and playing by Billy.

Next was a super awesome portion with Vernon Reid on guitar.  Just awesome.  At some point during this awesomeness DJ Logic came out to join in on turntables.  Vernon stays up for a while and eventually Charlie Burnham comes out for one of my favorite parts of the evening.  Reid leaves at some point while all of this is going on.

After that, the guests left the stage and they put out a pedal steel guitar for Chuck Campbell.  That was great.

For the final piece they were taking away the pedal steel and putting up a mic for Miho Hatori.  It was about midnight and I decided to leave before she came onstage.

It was a phenomenal evening.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okin6dWzm64

http://jazztimes.com/articles/30182-undead-music-festival-2012

http://www.sortmusic.com/rss/en/m/medeski-martin-and-wood/f20120511/C18C341AFA.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/12/arts/music/medeski-martin-wood-at-the-undead-music-festival.html?_r=1


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