Like the elaborate, sporadic cadences he creates, Billy Martin is distinctly unpredictable.

In the early moments of a conversation with the ingenious percussionist of the modern jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood, I mention that drummers are rarely the spokesmen for bands.

“I kind of wish it was that way,” he mutters.

A self-described “solitary person,” Martin speaks with a gentle but withdrawn tone. He says he’s not big into hanging with groups of people.

So, when Martin begins rhapsodizing on Lil’ Kim’s skills, he sounds a bit erratic, like a priest at a Marilyn Manson gig.

“I like her rawness, the way she phrases things and the words that she uses,” he says. “I know it’s pretty explicit and graphic at times, but there’s a humor in it. You can’t take that shit too seriously, or you’re going to be offended. But to me, it’s really smart and clever.”

Medeski Martin & Wood, who came out of an eclectic East Village music scene in the early ’90s, could be called the Lil’ Kim of jazz.

Critics praise the group, which also includes John Medeski on a variety of keyboards and organs and Chris Wood on bass, for their innovative approach to modern jazz, while neo-hippie music lovers worship their dance-inducing grooves.

Like a collective Andy Warhol, their art has an ahead-of-its-time feel, which has a high culture society licking their lips.

Resting in a Cincinnati hotel room, Martin explains how the three musicians somehow met in Boston, though none of them are from there.

Later, Medeski was playing piano gigs at a couple of Village bars and Martin and Wood simply merged in the mix.

Blending elements of funk, hip-hop, blues and rock into a unique jazz concoction, they spent most of the decade developing their sound on stage and in the studio.

Six proclaimed indie albums later, Medeski Martin & Wood released “Combustication” in 1998 on the famed Blue Note Records, catapulting the trio to jazz hero status.

“Was ‘Combustication’ a breakthrough record? I don’t know,” Martin ponders. “Maybe ‘Combustication’ crossed over on another level. It also may have something to do with what it communicated to other people. Every record, we hope, is a breakthrough in some way.”

“Combustication” marked the group’s initial breakdown of the barrier between jazz and hip-hop. They had been improving with a variety of musicians and when DJ Logic brought his turntable creations to the mix, they jumped at the opportunity and invited him to the studio.

This is how Martin starts talking rap.

“I grew up listening to early hip-hop, so it’s kind of part of my culture, and it seemed like the obvious direction to go in,” he says. “Personally, I’d like to work with Lil’ Kim, Busta Rhymes and … Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul were a big inspiration to me. I always related to what they did.”

I picture Martin scratching his chin as he pauses.

“Busta Rhymes, he’s hilarious. He has it all. Not only does he have funny shit and interesting stuff to talk about, he’s also putting in these rhythms and phrases. I’d love to get all up in that. But I don’t have to.

“I have a fantasy of getting with someone who can rap on the level of Coltrane or Ellington or Sun Ra. As great as Busta Rhymes is, I don’t think he can ultimately throw down what those masters would.”

Medeski Martin & Wood pride themselves on pushing the instrumental envelope. They recently began working on a new record, which Martin says will reach unprecedented levels.

“We like to go in as many directions as we can without distorting things,” he says. “It’s a language. We want people to understand what we are communicating, but at the same time, we want to explore other scenarios. We don’t think about it a lot; we just do it. The less thinking and conceptualizing, the better.”

The trio plays as a whole without a leader, which they say allows them to be more creative. Although solos run rampant on stage and on records, they never seem out of place.

“I think three is the magic number,” Martin says. “If you have the right balance, it’s really powerful. Being a trio is less limiting than being in a band with maybe five or six players, because it’s really hard trying to balance a whole band out. You have to think about playing less at times, and then there are times when you have to step in front and lead the band.”

On random Monday nights at Manhattan’s legendary Knitting Factory is where Medeski Martin & Wood truly get their groove on. The shows attract an all-star roster of local musicians who work their way into the improvisational sets.

On the road, Martin says the shows are about 50 percent impromptu.

“There are levels of improvisation: where everything is completely spontaneously composed, where we’ve never even played those notes before,” he says. “Or when we’ll just call out tunes. And then we’ll basically interpret everything differently each night, whether it’s someone’s solo or changing the sections or bringing two songs into one. Some songs are straightforward, but they’re never quite like the record.”

Attracting the same sort of cult fan base as Phish or the Grateful Dead, Medeski and mates are known for putting the acid in acid jazz, meaning they provoke the spaghetti-limb style dancing associated with a good trip.

But even a grooving crowd isn’t a constant with the group.

“Sometimes, they are sitting,” Martin says, emotionless. “So, we’ll start to get into that kind of world. But if people are jumping up and down, then we’ll kind of stay there for a while. We’ll groove out and then go into more of a expansive kind of journey.

“But we never stay in one place for a long time.”

That would be too predictable.