Child's Play

“Amman, Dijon, Yokohama, Tijuana, Grand Bahama / Don’t forget to call your mamma!”

Directing such lyrics at those still in their single digits, Medeski Martin & Wood have crafted a highly unexpected, but extremely hip, anthem. The song in question is the fierce improvisatory trio’s recent reworking of Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” into the smart and funky “Let’s Go Everywhere,” the title track from their new children’s album. Featuring a dance-worthy signature MMW groove, interlocking keyboard blues riffs, and lyrics espousing adventurous global exploration, the track is accessible as it is energetic — and sophisticated as it is playful. The album’s 16 other cuts are deftly conceived as well, and executed with equal irreverence and panache.

John Medeski has long been a master of integrating disparate vintage keyboard instruments — piano, B-3, Clavinet, Wurlitzer, Mellotron, and melodica are among his favorites — to create a distinctive musical voice. Similarly, with band mates Billy Martin (drums) and Chris Wood (bass), John has brought together the gritty drive of MMW’s previous albums, the substantial musicianship of his core trio, guest singers and instrumentalists of all ages, and a clear vision to create a wonderfully puzzling hybrid. How can a children’s album be smarter and edgier than most “adult” music currently on the market? How does the complexity and darkness inherent in MMW’s work translate into a disc meant for young-uns? What exactly is a “squalb”? And most importantly, why don’t pirates take baths?

We caught up with John backstage at Washington, DC’s 9:30 Club to get the answers. Well, except for those last two. You’ll just have to listen to the tracks yourself to learn the truth.

I was genuinely surprised — and pretty excited — to see a children’s album coming from MMW.
Well, I’ve always considered any of our music good for kids. [Laughs.] I’ve actually heard a lot from friends that, in the car, their kid loves some tune of ours. You know, little kids. So I’ve always known that kids related to our music and something that has always disturbed me, especially in the last 15 years, is to see how entertainment for children has degraded, and how it’s constantly playing down to them. I remember some of the cartoons we had growing up and you look back even further at these incredible stories, tales, and fables kids had. There was always more to it. There was always some other layer or level there.

It’s the same if you listen to music from other cultures for kids, especially more traditional music. It’s not that far off from regular “adult” music. Maybe the lyrical content will have more of a children’s context. It can be deep, which is what I’m trying to do, and I always thought that there’s no reason it shouldn’t be that way. A lot of factors have created a shallow puddle of music for kids and spirit. [MMW] has been talking about doing a children’s album forever — there are a lot of things that we want to do and we’re slowly getting them together as time goes on.

I like the rawness and energy of MMW albums, including this one. It doesn’t hold back, but it’s still kid-friendly.
For kids, you don’t need to eliminate anything. We just thought, “Everybody’s got kids and we’re around kids all the time, so let’s do it!” But we created the music from the same place that we create any of our music. It comes from your heart. It comes from that mystical collective, the unconscious, conscious subconscious where all good music comes from. So we just thought about kids and we tapped into it. Some of the grooves on it are what we do all the time. “Let’s Go Everywhere” is a classic groove of ours — just a simple blues, but our way of playing it. So it was great to do it.

It’s so interesting to hear that children really dug your earlier albums. I remember first hearing Combustication and The Dropper and finding myself a little intimidated. I loved them, but they felt very dark and edgy.
Well, The Dropper is probably our edgiest record. I always heard “Bubblehouse” and the “Bubblehouse” remix record, some of the older stuff, as particularly good for children. The Dropper could be rough. [Laughs.] That delves into a deeper puddle.

What was MMW’s collective creative process like for this album?
We work with three people the way that one individual would compose. The democracy takes a little longer when you have three people involved in the process than it does if you’re just alone, but it’s really the same kind of thing.

This is how we do any of our music, and I also feel that, in a lot of ways, it’s just the basic compositional impulse. You have a feeling, a general idea that you want to express, and then you start working it out. One of the things that we’ll do often is get together and start playing and improvising. Either we’ll record it, go back and listen, and say, “Here’s an interesting thing that happened. Let’s take this and then develop it.” We relate to the feeling of something that happens. Or we’ll stop and say, “Hey, that was really cool. Let’s do that again and try this.” You would find a progression, pattern, melody, mathematical formula, or lyrical idea, and spend the rest of the time trying to, with inspiration, flesh it out. We bounce ideas off and if somebody isn’t feeling it, we get rid of it, or we keep trying it. It slowly builds like that. That’s how we’ve written a lot of our music together.

We’ve also experimented with every possible way of using the studio from just going in and improvising, putting tracks one on top of the other — not laboring over it — but just creating an improvisation and then going back and writing material to enter into that improvisation. This record was really no different except that we were thinking about kids as our audience.

How did things get started in the studio?
We just tried a few tunes. We had some obviously traditional children’s songs on there. Billy said, “I love this tune ‘Old Paint.’ Let’s try that.” Then it was like, “Okay, how do we want to do it?” We decided just to do a simple, beautiful piano trio version. That seemed to suit the tune the best. For “All Around the Kitchen,” we messed around with a lot and, finally, it ended up like a broken down thing where I play bass melodica, Billy’s playing percussion, and Chris is playing bass together with us — a live room kind of thing. Chris recorded his daughter playing with pots and pans with her little cooking set, and we put that in there on top of it. [Laughs.]

Chris also brought in a couple of tunes that he wrote. There’s the “Far East Sweets” tune that we fleshed out together. For me, it was just about finding different sounds, putting stuff inside the piano [see “Re-Engineering the Piano” below], and I used this instrument called the Claviola made by Hohner. Of course, they don’t make them anymore. It was designed by the guy who designed the Clavinet [Hohner staff designer and engineer Ernst Zacharias —ed.] — maybe even before he designed the Clavinet. But they never put it out. Some time in the recent past, they made a little run of them. It’s got reeds in it, you blow into it, and it’s got a keyboard, but you can actually use your hand to bend the notes on the outside. It’s got a very sine wave kind of sound. It’s kind of calliope-like but very clean. It’s discontinued, but I found mine through somebody on the road.

I love the track, “Cat Creeps” — you can really visualize a cat stalking something when you hear it.
That tune is Billy Martin’s, fully. He had this idea when he was on the piano, that bass line, and then we started playing. He sang it to us and we figured out, “Okay, that’s a blues.” Then the melody — he sang the first part, picked it out, and showed it to us, and it came together. I love that one, too. We do it all the time in our regular shows because it’s such a fun tune to play.

What instruments did you use in the studio on that?
Wah-wah Wurlitzer for sure, piano, and also I play this old Wurlitzer organ — a little electric organ, model 7300. It’s an incredible instrument.

Was that track recorded live in the studio?
I ended up overdubbing some stuff, but all the basic tracks are live. I’m playing one or two keyboard parts and you can tell when there’s three things going on at once. [Laughs.]

How does that translate live? You only have two hands, obviously.
It’s just different. I generally try to keep three or four things going, but I can’t do them all at the same time, so I leave space from one when I’m playing a melody or something, and then I get back to it. For me, it’s been a lifelong process of trying to really hear parts separately and simultaneously very clearly, so I can make them work and connect, and make the right choices to keep them going when I’m not playing one.

So it’s not missed when it drops out.
Yeah. If everybody’s playing all the time, it’s a constant drag. So just keeping that in mind, leaving space, and keeping everything answering — a lot of call and response kind of stuff, or some fugal ideas moving back and forth between the parts — is very important.

What are some of the challenges of doing that live, and jumping from instrument to instrument?
The challenge, which is more of an awareness, is to understand that these instruments are all different and they all have their own worlds. I like to explore them and see what sounds I can get out of them. It’s like they become a part of my personality. The Clavinet player is this guy and the Wurlitzer player is this other guy. [Laughs.] The B-3 is such a huge world that it can be so many things, and the same with the piano.

Certain instruments have limitations. That’s always been my thing and that’s why I play these old instruments. I like the fact that the Clavinet is a certain sound world, and I’ve never heard a digital Clavinet that comes close in terms of the variety of tone you can get. Each Clavinet is different and you can get a lot of different touches and sounds. They’re each of their own world, as opposed to having one instrument that has a thousand different worlds, but each one is very limited within its expressive scope. Whereas with a Wurlitzer or a piano, it does what it does, but there are varieties of touch.

For me, one of the challenges with the Wurlitzer was to stop breaking reeds, because you can’t hit it as hard as a piano or a Rhodes. So for a couple years when I first got one, I was learning how to get the same amount of attack, volume, or edge with the minimum amount of damage to the keyboard [laughs], the minimum amount of energy expended.

That’s the thing — you just learn. The B-3 has a whole different touch than any of these instruments and it has a very distinct touch, just how the key plays each contact separately. You can use that in your attack, and percussion adds a whole other element. So the challenge is developing a real physical, tactile, and aural relationship with the technique of the instrument, really making it a part of you. It just takes time. You might sit down with one of them on its own and start exploring all the sounds you can get. I love to do that. Generally the instruments I play are the ones I relate to.

So it sounds like we’re probably not going to see you with a Korg Triton or a Yamaha Motif any time soon.
I don’t have one. Give me one and I might use it! [Laughs.] It’s funny. No one ever mentioned that. I don’t know. What I did get, which I will admit, is Sibelius. I’ve always written things out, but I got to try it to see if it made it easier — it does and it doesn’t. I just learned the way I learned. I like it; it’s great. Keyboards are great. Those workstations are fantastic. But I like to keep doing it in my head I guess. I’m scared of it being too easy.

It’s definitely a danger.
I mean, people make unbelievable music in the digital world. People make incredibly powerful music with their laptops. It’s just not what I do. I like the physical feeling of playing. It’s what I really love. It’s what gets me off and it’s what gets me to that place, and that’s the most important thing. Whatever takes you there and keeps you there, that’s your tool.

Do you play any melodica on Let’s Go Everywhere?
Suzuki makes this well-made pro model melodica that’s incredible. It’s a real, serious instrument. They also make a bass melodica which is also great. It’s an octave down from the regular octave. There’s a little more air and it speaks a little later; that’s the same with any low wind instrument. They also just sent me the Andes-25. It’s a wind-powered keyboard, like a melodica, but more calliope-like. It sounds like high-pitched flutes.

Do you use that on Let’s Go Everywhere?
I just got it so I will be using it in the future. I also use this other melodica called the [Sound Electra] Mylodica, which is made out of wood and it’s a fantastic instrument with an incredible sound. Look up melodicas.com and you’ll find it there. I also have some older melodicas. I have an old Hohner metal one and I love it. I have some others and they’re all really different and all amazing. It’s funny because, like with anything, you start getting into it and noticing that there are differences — between the Suzuki one and the Mylodica, for example.

Do you perform a lot of the children’s songs live?
We recorded this album [around Winter, ’07] and we’ve been waiting for it to come out. In the meantime we have been playing some of the tunes live. We’ve been doing “Cat Creeps” a lot. We’ll do “Where’s the Music,” without the “Where’s the Music” part. [Laughs.]

Aw, that’s the best part!
Yeah, but I think it’s against the law to bring kids into some of these clubs. We’ve done the tune “Let’s Go,” which is also subtitled “Everybody Poops,” but it’s not on the record like that.

Why not? That’s a great title.
We had called that originally, but there’s a book with the same name and we didn’t know if we could get away with using it, too. We’ve also been doing “The Squalb.” We do the music from that, which we call “Wake Up” as our instrumental title for it. That has expanded into a heavy tune. Some of the other stuff we haven’t pulled out yet. But when we do it live, we do it longer and a little crazier. We’ll see how it is. We’re also going to do some kids’ gigs coming up.

When you first meet a new instrument, like a Claviola, how do you determine if it’s something you want to use, if it’s going to take you where you want to go?
I usually just throw the I Ching [laughs] and I ask it, “Is this a good keyboard for me to own?” Really, I just start playing it and I either relate to the sound or I don’t. There’s always a sound-verses-touch thing with an instrument that’s hard to put into words — how does it respond? That’s the first thing. I really feel the physical aspect of the instrument — how does it make its sound physically? Is it about turning knobs? What is it that creates variation? When you sing a note, phrase, or song, your voice goes all over the place. There are different intonations, maybe there’s vibrato here or there, but it’s constantly changing. People we love don’t just have a flat sound to their voices. To me, that’s like when I look at an instrument. What are the subtleties of the dynamic variations? What are the sonic differences? Where’s the coloristic expression in the instrument? Then I just work on it from there and slowly develop a relationship.

What advice could you offer to readers who aspire to play, perform, and improvise at your level?
First of all, you have to spend time with your instrument. You have to spend a year of your life where it’s all you’re doing if you really want to make it. You have to just make that commitment that whatever it is you’re going to be doing in music, you’re going to be playing or working on it eight to ten hours a day. If you give yourself a year, everything is going to come together. To give that time and commitment is a big statement in every way. To let go and give up what you have to give up to do that — the payback is huge, and you’ll know then if you want to continue to make music your life. But we’re all scared to let go and jump off that cliff. Pretty much everybody we love that’s at a certain level, they’ve all done that in their lives.

The other thing that I think is vital is making a connection between the music and yourself. It’s important to check out what other people play, to learn other people’s solos, their voicings, their devices — it’s important because that’s how we develop our techniques, by studying other things. You have to find out what all these notes, intervals, chords — what do they mean to you? How do they feel? What does a C major or an Eb minor chord feel like? Then you start adding more notes. You have to develop your own relationship with the music itself, the tones and the vibrations. That’s the only way you can really express yourself. Even if you don’t want to play your own music, you still have to have that connection between yourself and the music because that’s where the magic happens. That’s what people really want to feel and hear, whatever kind of music you’re playing — how simple or how complicated is irrelevant. It’s what kind of vibration you’re creating between yourself and the music.

And then you start adding in the elements of who’s listening to it and everything else. The more you work with it and the more in touch with it you are, the better able you are to channel that energy and work with it. It’s so important to make that personal connection. I’m still working on it!

Re-Engineering the Piano

On the song “Far East Sweets” off of Let’s Go Everywhere, John used a variety of objects to tweak the sound of his prepared acoustic piano. “There are different sections,” he says. “I had some simple things like paper under the dampers. I experimented trying to find the right metallic objects to create this bouncing effect — not exactly like gamelan, but something in that realm. I experimented with some keys on metal.”

In the course of delving into prepared piano, John discovered several principles that helped him create the sounds he wanted to hear. “If you put stuff on the keyboard side of the dampers, they don’t bounce around as much,” he says. “You don’t want them to move around very much, and you do want them to color the sound. I had metal rods in there and I would attach keys to the end of one. I also had this heavy metal pole on one section that actually dampened the strings. It all depends. I have a piano that I totally retuned and reworked at our rehearsal space. I’ve actually taken it out on the road a couple times. I tuned a lot of the three-string notes to sound as little chords.”

Though placing knickknacks and shrapnel inside a piano may seem haphazard, John had a system, using different zones of the keyboard to create different sounds and effects. “It’s like a percussion instrument in a way,” he says. “I have different regions of the piano set up for different things. The upper region is divided into a couple sections where, let’s say within an octave, it’s very gamelan-like because each note is a three-note chord. And then a section down has a different version of the same thing. The middle of the piano is set up to play one particular piece. Certain notes are detuned or tuned to where I want them to be for a particular composition.”

A Selected John Medeski Discography

With Medeski Martin & Wood
Let’s Go Everywhere (Little Monster Records)
End of the World Party (Just in Case) (Blue Note)
The Dropper (Blue Note)
Combustication (Blue Note)
Tonic (Blue Note)
It’s a Jungle in Here (Gramavision)

With Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood
Out Louder (Blue Note)