EMBARK ON A
MUSICAL ADVENTURE WITH MEDESKI MARTIN & WOOD
Tickets On-sale Friday, June 15 at 10:00 a.m.
Tickets On-sale Friday, June 15 at 10:00 a.m.
BETHEL, NY (June 12, 2012) –The perfect 3-day weekend in early October ends with An Acoustic Evening with Medeski Martin & Wood in the Event Gallery at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts on Sunday, October 7 at 7:30 p.m. The concert concludes a weekend that hosts the Wine Festival on Saturday, October 6 and the final Harvest Festival, Rustic Craft Show, on Sunday. Reserved tickets are $40.00 in advance and go on-sale Friday, June 15 at 10:00 a.m. Tickets can be purchased at BethelWoodsCenter.org, Ticketmaster or by phone at 1.800.745.3000.
The trio’s amalgam of
jazz, funk, “avant-noise” and a million other musical currents and impulses is
nearly impossible to classify, which is just how they like it. Medeski’s
keyboard excursions, Chris Wood’s hard-charging bass lines and Billy Martin’s
supple, danceable beats have come to resemble a single organism, moving
gracefully between genre-defying compositions and expansive improvisation atop a
relentless groove.
Floridian Medeski had his first out-of-body experience playing a Mozart piano sonata as an adolescent. He soon began playing at every opportunity – from school musicals and talent shows to marching band, in which he served as a percussionist -- and had his mind blown by an Oscar Peterson record. As a teen, he formed his own jazz-fusion trio and was invited to tour Japan by legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius. He made his way to the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) and entered its boundary-pushing Third Stream department, which nurtured his improvisational impulses and encouraged him to find his own musical voice. He worked as a sideman in Boston and rediscovered roots music playing seven nights a week Mr. Jelly Belly.
California-born, Colorado-bred Wood, meanwhile, learned folk and blues songs at the feet of his musician/biologist dad and poet mom, swooned at the fearless innovations of Mingus and Monk, attended NEC and eventually studied with Geri Allen, Dave Holland and other luminaries. His apprenticeship with these powerful music figures was, he admits, a humbling one. “Sometimes my lesson would consist of me improvising for an hour with Geri watching,” he relates. “It was terrifying, because it exposed every weakness. But the more you accept who you are, the more free you are to express that. Your bag of tricks as a player becomes a doorway to infinite possibilities.”
Martin, who’d grown up in New York and New Jersey, imbibed a range of musical currents from his classical violinist father and Radio City Rockette mother, but it was his older brothers who first exposed him to rock and soul. He fell in love with Hendrix, James Brown, Sly Stone, Zappa and KISS and began bashing his uncle’s kit; soon he was in the jazz band at school, then at the preparatory division of the Manhattan School of Music. As a musical omnivore in New York City, he studied with assorted greats, mastered an array of percussion instruments, formed the samba band Batucada and played with everyone from jazz-pop superstar Chuck Mangione to Bill Frisell to New York’s avant-garde heroes the Lounge Lizards.
For more information please visit BethelWoodsCenter.org or call 1.866.781.2922.
Floridian Medeski had his first out-of-body experience playing a Mozart piano sonata as an adolescent. He soon began playing at every opportunity – from school musicals and talent shows to marching band, in which he served as a percussionist -- and had his mind blown by an Oscar Peterson record. As a teen, he formed his own jazz-fusion trio and was invited to tour Japan by legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius. He made his way to the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) and entered its boundary-pushing Third Stream department, which nurtured his improvisational impulses and encouraged him to find his own musical voice. He worked as a sideman in Boston and rediscovered roots music playing seven nights a week Mr. Jelly Belly.
California-born, Colorado-bred Wood, meanwhile, learned folk and blues songs at the feet of his musician/biologist dad and poet mom, swooned at the fearless innovations of Mingus and Monk, attended NEC and eventually studied with Geri Allen, Dave Holland and other luminaries. His apprenticeship with these powerful music figures was, he admits, a humbling one. “Sometimes my lesson would consist of me improvising for an hour with Geri watching,” he relates. “It was terrifying, because it exposed every weakness. But the more you accept who you are, the more free you are to express that. Your bag of tricks as a player becomes a doorway to infinite possibilities.”
Martin, who’d grown up in New York and New Jersey, imbibed a range of musical currents from his classical violinist father and Radio City Rockette mother, but it was his older brothers who first exposed him to rock and soul. He fell in love with Hendrix, James Brown, Sly Stone, Zappa and KISS and began bashing his uncle’s kit; soon he was in the jazz band at school, then at the preparatory division of the Manhattan School of Music. As a musical omnivore in New York City, he studied with assorted greats, mastered an array of percussion instruments, formed the samba band Batucada and played with everyone from jazz-pop superstar Chuck Mangione to Bill Frisell to New York’s avant-garde heroes the Lounge Lizards.
For more information please visit BethelWoodsCenter.org or call 1.866.781.2922.
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