The Jazzy Spirit of Medeski, Martin and Wood

At first listen, some will hear bits of jazz or rock 'n' roll, while others will hear traces of funk, hip hop or electronica. With every subsequent listen after, those varying tones and sounds comprising the music of Medeski, Martin and Wood eventually come together within a series of distinct grooves making the New York trio's style all its own.

"I think our music has the spirit of jazz," explained Billy Martin. "I think we do it all. We play around with everything. We're into classical, we're into reggae and folk. Everything. Sometimes it doesn't sound like jazz, sometimes it might sound like funk or rock 'n' roll, or, sometimes it might sound symphonic or cinematic. But I like the word jazz though and I played with a lot of different musicians who have played straight ahead and new forms of jazz, and I feel like what we are doing is a part of that lineage but not necessarily just jazz.

"There are so many types of jazz now, you can't really say it's jazz anymore because I think jazz is an evolving form. It's still very young and a lot of people want to keep it like what it was in the 1930s, 1950s or 1960s and all those periods are completely different from each other. A lot of people who look back to all those different periods can say, 'Oh that's jazz, I know that's jazz because that's what I been hearing.'

"Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and the more modern European music is considered jazz, but what we're doing, a lot of people don't think of it as jazz because they don't know, or they don't understand. We pretty much blend a lot of the same elements."

The sounds of MMW would simply qualify as music happening to encompass virtually every genre on the planet. It's just a matter of whether one is really looking out for those stylistic variations trademark to the group formed in 1991.

As the drummer and one-third of a trio known to vibe, groove, smoke and swing, Martin reveres the eccentric, symphonic dialect he shares with his two equally inspiring counterparts, keyboardist John Medeski and bassist Chris Wood.

With their ninth and latest album entitled "Uninvisible," Medeski, Martin and Wood's career spans 10 years that first found its wings within the diverse New York borough of Brooklyn. Medeski and Wood, both of whom attended Boston's New England Conservatory of Music, became friends by way of a tour with famed drummer Bob Moses in Israel. They moved to Brooklyn, met Martin and began jamming in the native New Yorker's loft in the summer of 1991.

Martin, 38, has been playing the drums for the past 27 years with influences spanning in forms from everything to African and Brazilian rhythms to funk and rock to jazz.

"I'm influenced by everything. I like Elvin Jones, Stewart Copeland, Keith Moon, a lot of unknown Brazilian and African music, and a lot of avant garde and modern stuff," added Martin. "All of it is tied together to create a language that I like."

Aside from their work together, Martin, who's also an art enthusiast and painter, recently founded Amulet Records, a label highlighting the divergent sounds grounded in the percussion world.

"John is a very generous person and open to a lot of people. I'm a little introverted. I have that side of me that likes to create things at a more artistic level, and Chris is really friendly and he's really into everything," said Martin. "We all balance each other out, our personalities are all different. John feels like he is never good enough and Chris just works harder than."

Martin describes Wood is the band mate who is constantly inspired while Medeski, who has a passion for cooking, is also a member of the group, The Word, with slide guitarist Robert Randolph and the North Mississippi All-stars.

"The chemistry with us is really strong. We admire each other as friends, not just as musicians," said Martin. "We have a lot of respect for each other and it's sort of like a family, and that's what keeps the band going. We get to the point in our playing when we are not thinking about anything. The music is just coming out of us and I don't feel like I'm even playing. We are having a conversation with each other on the stage with our instruments."

With previous albums that feature the band's wide breadth of musical ranges such as "Notes from the Underground" to "Combustication" to "Shack Man," MMW approaches both the studio and the stage in the same manner. The trio usually composes loosely defined arrangements with simple melodies, leaving significant depth and space in each tune for live improvisation.

"When you have tape recorder running, you can capture some really great stuff. Then you can go back, listen, pick out what you really think is cool, work on it and change it," explained Martin.

Such recordings like "Uninvisible" (2002, Blue Note Records) and "Combustication" (1999, Blue Note Records) not only feature the quirky and outlandish connection between MMW, but the spinning wizardry of DJ Logic, DJ Olive and DJ P. Love.

MMW also recorded "A Go Go," (1998, Verve Recordings) with legendary guitarist John Scofield which has been dubbed by many fans as a classic example of invention, exemplifying the true talents of each artist. Scofield and MMW will tour together when performing next month at the Hollywood Bowl.

"Playing with John is like playing with your next-door neighbor," explained Martin. "He likes some of the similar music that we do, he likes the grooves that we play from the New Orleans stuff to the James Brown feeling sort of arrangements. He sort of just wrote based on that and made it really easy for us."