Keyboardist John Medeski is not shy when it comes to musical collaboration. He’s played with dozens of bands — including his own side projects and guest spots with other groups — and contributed to more than 300 albums.
Medeski’s collaborations span the musical gamut, from the avant-metal of Simalcrum to the psychedelic Moroccan trance of Club d’Elf. He came to prominence as a co-founder of Medeski, Martin & Wood — an improvisationally minded trio whose jazz-rooted style requires a pocketful of hyphens to describe adequately. The trio has played rarely in recent years, but Medeski’s calendar stays full.
He brings a seldom-seen group to the Music at the Intersection festival in St. Louis this weekend. John Medeski’s Mad Skillet is rooted in the rhythms of New Orleans-style brass bands, with heavy doses of jazz, funk and experimentation mixed in. It includes guitarist Will Bernard and the core of New Orleans ensemble the Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s rhythm section: sousaphonist Kirk Joseph and drummer Terence Higgins.
John Medeski’s Mad Skillet was formed out of annual late-night jam sessions during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. After a 2018 album and some touring the next year, the quartet has been pretty quiet. The St. Louis appearance is the band’s only U.S. show booked this year.
Medeski’s group will be one of more than 75 musical acts featured at the three-day MATI festival, which begins Friday.
St. Louis Public Radio’s Jeremy D. Goodwin asked Medeski about his approach to entering different musical environments, and how this project graduated from once-a-year events to a working band.
Jeremy D. Goodwin: How did this group come together?
John Medeski: I would go to JazzFest every year, doing the musician rite of passage — you know, 25 gigs in two weeks. Two or three a day. And Will Bernard and I would play together, and we did it in a few different configurations. This combination kind of landed, and it was as though we’d been playing together every day. It was just: Everything clicks.
For me, it’s all about chemistry, and it just had this magic chemistry. And it wasn’t a one-time accident or a lucky night, it was like every time we get together.
Goodwin: You’re comfortable playing heavy metal or klezmer with John Zorn’s projects, you’ve been a longtime featured guest with Club D’elf. When you look at your body of work, is there something that ties it all together?
Medeski: Music! I just really love music. When I was a kid, I would always do anything that came along. Somebody said, “Hey, can you play for this?” and I would say yes. And if I didn’t know how to do it, I would go check it out and try to figure it out.
I’ve played on 300 to 400 albums, and just like you were saying, it’s very different kinds of music. I really love trying to find a way to support whatever music or whatever musicians I’m playing with, using what I play to integrate into their music. Even if they don’t normally have keyboards.
I really give over to the music. I listen to it, and ask what it can use. What does it need? What can I add that might enhance it or give it a different perspective?
Goodwin: What’s the importance of New Orleans in your own musical development?
Medeski: I think everyone knows that New Orleans is sort of the epicenter of music in this country. I had visited New Orleans as a tourist when I was younger. Medeski, Martin & Wood had one of its first gigs there in the early ‘90s, and that just spawned years of going back to New Orleans. I started meeting musicians there and playing with them.
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band asked me to produce a record of theirs, and I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to put together some kind of band with those guys. And then when we landed with this configuration, it was like: All right, this is it. We’ve got to do this.
Goodwin: Is there a chance we might hear more from Medeski, Martin & Wood soon?
Medeski: Yes, there is a very good chance. We just finished mixing a new record that we actually recorded seven years ago when we took our year off that turned into — I don’t even know how long the hiatus has been.
We had this material that we recorded, and it’s just been kind of sitting there. So we finally mixed it. That’s going to be coming out in the next year. The band is playing on Jam Cruise in February, and we’ll probably do a couple other shows. Possibly in Colorado. Hopefully, we can work everybody’s schedule out. I think you’ll be seeing more of us.
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