Track Listing

1. Sugarcraft
2. Just Like I Pictured It
3. Start/Stop
4. Nocturne
5. Hey-Hee-Hi-Ho
6. Whatever Happened To Gus
7. Latin Shuffle
8. Everyday People
9. Coconut Boogaloo
10. Church Of Logic
11. No Ke Ano Ahiahi
12. Hypnotized

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16097 in Music
• Released on: 1998-08-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.com's Best of 1998
The rather plainly named Medeski Martin & Wood have almost single-handedly returned the spotlight to the more out-there fusion between bop jazz and on-the-one funky rock music. Wheezing and huffing behind a bank of old-school keyboards, Medeski Martin & Wood plow into their songs with abandon. The drums of Billy Martin push the band out and away rather than gathering them neat and tidy, while bassist Chris Wood delivers the rhythms that somehow manage to keep every musical tidbit strapped to the deck. For his part, keyboardist John Medeski slaps and whacks his keys with inspired malice, all the while leaning heavy on the volume pedal. With the addition of DJ Logic further warping this band's sound, Medeski Martin & Wood have reached escape velocity and are now orbiting the planet. They may never come back. --S. Duda

Amazon.com essential recording
On their Blue Note Records debut, MMW move away from the diffuse, free form jams that characterized their 1996 release, Shack-Man, but the organ trio's trademark free-jazz-daring meets groove-happy-funk approach isn't diminished by move. The return to the more tightly focused approach that characterized Friday Afternoon in the Universe, may be motivated by commercial concerns (how many more Phishheads can they possibly convert?) but it's also a musical triumph; Combustication is the trio's finest of their six recordings. DJ Logic's warbling scratches enliven "Start-Stop" and "Church of Logic." Poet Steve Cannon recites some appropriately fried verses on "What Ever Happened to Gus," and the band takes Sly Stone's "Everyday People" away from Madison Avenue and into the Southern Baptist church. But is it jazz? Well, as Lester Bowie once said to a similar inquiry, "It depends on what you know." --Martin Johnson

Customer Reviews

Jazz meets the Turntables
Funky Stylists MMW are at it again. This time with the help of DJ Logic. Great beats and musical wonderment for your listening enjoyment. If you love MMW and don't have this CD go for it. The addition of a DJ only adds to the variation that this trio brings with every album.

yes yes yes
This is a truly incredible Medeski Martin & Wood album. I love most all MMW that I've heard, but sometimes their explorations on albums such as Friday Afternoon and The Dropper, for example, have a tendency to move into extreamly loose ambience. While I love that type of thing, and really dig those albums, on this one, Combustication, they take things to a whole new level. The group is unbelievably focused - They were definatly in some kind of pocket when they made this one. Every song is tight and the group is listening to each other even better than usual. Medeski's organ is really on fire all the way through, the colors of his instrument really shining. And, not only are the songs great, the album, as all great albums do, flows perfectly, logically, and fantastically. There's a great spoken word piece, "Whatever Happened to Gus", that displayes the groups love of jazz, and there's even a nod to a classic Miles Davis track from On the Corner, "Black Satin" in "Hey-Hee-Hi-Ho" with perfect replica of that slightly off clapping. Wonderful. If you buy this, you'll dig it. "That's Right."

Jazz Funk and Hip Hop all in one.
As a musician and a hip hop fan I can say that combustication covers it ALL without losing the group's originality or going commerical. Jazz fans will like Wood's walking bass lines, the Latin bass flavor, and a solo that ends one the tracks. If you like East Cost style Hip Hop, you'll especially like track10, Church of Logic. Jazz "purists" should'nt be disturbed by the DJ scracting, like I said, the group isn't showing any signs of selling out to the mainstream. If you're debating buying this album, forget the critics, period. This is my first MMV album but it definitely wont be the last.