A group that effortlessly straddles the gap between avant- garde improvisation and accessible groove-based jazz, Medeski Martin & Wood have simultaneously earned standings as relentlessly innovative musicians and an enormously popular act. Experience MMW locally for the first time since their two sold-out shows here in 2000.

The group has made improvisation their language -- how they communicate with one another and how they communicate with an audience. Their genius for making even the most sophisticated rhythmic and harmonic ideas instantly relatable to their listeners, via long- honed group empathy and individual precision, is balanced by an uncanny knack for imparting the simplest statements with a profound resonance and clarity. In concert they spontaneously shape ideas, each performance marking the start of a journey whose destination is unknown even to them.

The trio of keyboard/organ/piano player John Medeski, drummer/ percussionist Billy Martin, and bassist Chris Wood formed in the neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, known as D.U.M.B.O. (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) in 1991. Medeski and Wood, students at Boston's prestigious New England Conservatory of Music, had moved to New York City, with intent to explore the late-night underworld of the city's burgeoning jazz scene.

The men were looking to create music that reflected who they were, individually and collectively. The trio began experimenting with contemporary hip-hop beats that could swing as hard as jazz rhythms, yet remained essentially simple and propulsive, giving the musicians ample room to create hypnotic textures and sounds that were brimming with both improvisation and harmony.

Recent albums include a children's record called "Let's Go Everywhere" 

released early last year, "Zaebos: Book of Angels Vol.11," a collaboration with John Zorn last summer, and "The Radiolarian Series," a three-part writing/recording musical experiment that sees "Part Two" released on April 14, three days before the Smith show.

MMW's live performances are renowned for their exploratory nature. 

Their concerts oftentimes involve extended improvisations, which may be both arrhythmic and atonal, an aspect of their musicianship that is rarely documented in the studio.