JennJoy's Full Review: Tonic by Medeski, Martin & Wood
My experience with MattA75's "I'll Show You Mine If You'll Show Me Yours" write-off has been varied to say the least. The first year my partner disappeared and left me with nothing to review. Then there have been two instances where the album my partner sent me to review was not-so-great or just downright hard to review. Last year I got a break in the form of any album I truly enjoyed. This year my partner is Redsox75 and this match up presented a whole new challenge – what to send him. I think Drew and I have fairly similar tastes in music so I knew it would be hard to throw him much of loop with any disc I chose for him and I figured the same would be true of whatever he chose for me. And then he sent me jazz. Can you see the fear in my eyes?
I honestly enjoy listening to jazz and even own a good number of CDs (and vinyl too!) that qualifies as jazz, but writing about it absolutely petrifies me. Jazz is just one of those genres that I enjoy, but become baffled about how to describe the music. I guess you could say writing about jazz is completely outside my comfort zone and I think that is saying a lot considering the types of music I've reviewed over the years. But I guess that is at least half the point of the "I'll Show You Mine If You'll Show Me Yours" write-off, so here we go.
Drew sent me two discs to choose from and I picked Medeski, Martin, & Wood's Tonic because I've at least heard of these guys before. Coupled with existing familiarity with a few of the tracks on Tonic this whole thing didn't seem quite as daunting as other jazz albums might have been. I at least knew “Hey Joe” (Hendrix) and “Your Lady” (Coltrane). A little research filled me on the fact that this album was recorded live in 2000 in the New York club by the same name with just one microphone between the three musicians. Martins’ drums weren’t mic’d and Medeski used a piano instead of his normal Hammond organ while Wood rounded things out with his upright bass.
The trio starts off with the wholly improvised “Invocation” which really sets the stage for the rest of the album. Although my understanding of Medeski, Martin, & Wood was that the group was more of an alternative jazz trio loved by many a jamband fan, this is truly fine jazz. Next up is Lee Morgan’s “Afrique,” which bops along to the beautiful rhythm provided by the piano. The percussion and upright bass here are superb and exemplify everything I love about jazz as you can’t help but feel moved by what you are hearing. John Coltrane’s “Your Lady” brings deeper texture to the Tonic while their own “Rise Up” is another track that takes you on a whirlwind musical journey. Still, the trio’s beautiful rendition of “Hey Joe” is the perfect end to the album - not just because this is the song I’m most familiar with, but also because Medeski, Martin, & Wood treat this tune with such delicate care and the result is absolutely stunning.
While Tonic is not the type of album I would generally pick out for myself I thoroughly enjoyed all eight tracks and can now easily say I’m a Medeski, Martin, & Wood fan. If just eight live acoustic tracks have this much power too them I can only imagine what this group can do in the studio. Although I still feel outside my comfort zone trying to discuss jazz in any way, I at can at least say I know what I like when I hear it. Tonic is a great album for those on the fence about this genre or those who are looking to dip into this type of music for the first time. Thanks to Drew for turning me on to such a fabulous jazz group!
Check out the other entries for the "I'll Show You Mine If You'll Show Me Yours" write-off as they come in by visiting MattA75’s profile page.
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