Medeski Martin & Wood, Les Claypool Keep Jammin'

At the Other Tent, Medeski Martin & Wood let loose their disjointed, futuristic, and ultimately traditional improvisational jazz stylings for a smaller and more chilled out crowd. “There’s really nobody else here like them this year,” says Tom Long, a 25-year-old bartender from Philadelphia. “Two years ago there was more jazzy stuff.”

While Long said he and his group were “going in a circle” to catch many of the coinciding acts, he chose to start with Medeski because he “always has interesting sounds coming out of his keys and tends to improvise more than the rock bands, too.”

Backtracking a bit across Centeroo, Jam-god Les Claypool took the stage at That Tent, losing the pig-mask from Friday’s Oysterhead gig. Claypool played in support of his recently released, fifth solo album, Of Whales and Woe, for a well-dressed, tan, and chemically mellowed crowd. Jodi Yapp, a 23-year-old from the South Side of Chicago who’d seen him live over three times this week, said she chose the Claypool set over the other artists playing “because he kicks ass! I’d rather see him than someone I don’t know who sucks.”