Marc Ribot (;
born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.
His work has touched on many styles, including no wave,
free jazz
Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians duri ...
, rock, and
Cuban music
The music of Cuba, including its instruments, performance, and dance, comprises a large set of unique traditions influenced mostly by west African and European (especially Spanish) music. Due to the syncretic nature of most of its genres, Cuban mu ...
. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter, and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during ...
Vinicio Capossela
Vinicio Capossela (born 14 December 1965) is an Italian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist.
Capossela is renowned for the highly original and poetic lyrics of his songs. Many of them draw from traditions of Italian folk music, especially those ...
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.South Orange, New Jersey.
He has worked extensively as a session guitarist. He has performed and recorded with
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter, and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during ...
,
Caetano Veloso
Caetano Emanuel Viana Teles Veloso (; born 7 August 1942) is a Brazilian composer, singer, guitarist, writer, and political activist. Veloso first became known for his participation in the Brazilian musical movement Tropicalismo, which encomp ...
David Sylvian
David Sylvian (born David Alan Batt, 23 February 1958) is an English musician, singer and songwriter who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman and principal songwriter of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly ...
Wilson Pickett
Wilson Pickett (March 18, 1941 – January 19, 2006) was an American singer and songwriter.
A major figure in the development of soul music, Pickett recorded over 50 songs which made the US R&B charts, many of which crossed over to the ''Bill ...
,
The Lounge Lizards
The Lounge Lizards were an eclectic musical group founded by saxophonist John Lurie and his brother, pianist Evan Lurie, in 1978. Initially known for their ironic, tongue-in-cheek take on jazz, The Lounge Lizards eventually became a showcase f ...
,
Arto Lindsay
Arthur Morgan "Arto" Lindsay (born May 28, 1953) is an American guitarist, singer, record producer and experimental composer. He was a member of the pioneering 1970s no wave group DNA, which featured on the 1978 compilation '' No New York''. I ...
,
T-Bone Burnett
Joseph Henry "T Bone" Burnett III (born January 14, 1948) is an American record producer, guitarist and songwriter. He rose to fame as a guitarist in Bob Dylan's band during the 1970s. He has received multiple Grammy awards for his work in fil ...
,
Medeski, Martin and Wood
Medeski Martin & Wood (or MMW) is an American jazz fusion band formed in 1991, consisting of John Medeski on keyboards, Billy Martin on drums, and Chris Wood on bass. The band is influenced by musical traditions including funk and hip hop and ...
,
Cibo Matto
Cibo Matto (, Italian for "crazy food") was an American alternative rock band formed by Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori in New York City in 1994. Initially, the band's lyrics were primarily concerned with food, before expanding into broader subject ...
,
Sam Phillips
Samuel Cornelius Phillips (January 5, 1923 – July 30, 2003) was an American record producer. He was the founder of Sun Records and Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he produced recordings by Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, ...
Tift Merritt
Tift may refer to:
Places
* Tift County, Georgia, a county in south-central Georgia, United States
People with the given name
* Tift Merritt (born 1975), American singer-songwriter
People with the surname
* Andrew Tift (born 1968), British portr ...
,
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
,
Foetus
A fetus or foetus (; plural fetuses, feti, foetuses, or foeti) is the unborn offspring that develops from an animal embryo. Following embryonic development the fetal stage of development takes place. In human prenatal development, fetal develo ...
Alison Krauss
Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, competing in local contests by the age of 8 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with ...
,
Susana Baca Susana may refer to:
* Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA), a network of organizations active in the field of sustainable sanitation
* Susana (given name), a feminine given name (including a list of people with the name)
* ''Susana'' (magazine) ...
,
The Black Keys
The Black Keys are an American rock duo formed in Akron, Ohio, in 2001. The group consists of Dan Auerbach (guitar, vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums). The duo began as an independent act, recording music in basements and self-producing their ...
,
Vinicio Capossela
Vinicio Capossela (born 14 December 1965) is an Italian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist.
Capossela is renowned for the highly original and poetic lyrics of his songs. Many of them draw from traditions of Italian folk music, especially those ...
,
Alain Bashung
Alain Bashung (, born Alain Claude Baschung; 1 December 1947 – 14 March 2009) was a French singer, songwriter and actor. Credited with reviving the French chanson in "a time of French musical turmoil", he is often regarded in his home country a ...
,
McCoy Tyner
Alfred McCoy Tyner (December 11, 1938March 6, 2020) was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet (from 1960 to 1965) and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Master and five-time Gram ...
,
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer and actress. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single " As Tears Go By" and became one of the lead female artists during the British I ...
,
Diana Krall
Diana Jean Krall (born November 16, 1964) is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide, including over six million in the US. On December 11, 2009, '' Billboard'' maga ...
,
Mike Patton
Michael Allan Patton (born January 27, 1968) is an American singer, producer, film composer and voice actor, best known as the lead vocalist of the alternative metal band Faith No More. Noted for his vocal proficiency, diverse singing techni ...
, Stormin’ Norman and
Suzy Williams
Susan Dimiti "Suzy" Williams is an American singer-songwriter. She rose to notoriety in the musical duo Stormin’ Norman & Suzy. Williams has performed at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to the Hotel Palmas in the Canary Is ...
,
Neko Case
Neko Richelle Case (; born September 8, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter and member of the Canadian indie rock group the New Pornographers. Case has a powerful, untrained contralto voice, which has been described by contemporaries and cr ...
,
Joe Henry
Joseph Lee Henry (born December 2, 1960) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer. He has released 15 studio albums and produced multiple recordings for other artists, including three Grammy Award-winning albums.
Early life
H ...
,
Allen Toussaint
Allen Richard Toussaint (; January 14, 1938 – November 10, 2015) was an American musician, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was an influential figure in New Orleans rhythm and blues from the 1950s to the end of the century, descri ...
Ikue Mori
(born 17 December 1953), also known as Ikue Ile, is a drummer, electronic musician, composer, and graphic designer. Mori was awarded a "Genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 2022.
Biography
Ikue Mori was born and raised in Japan. She ...
, and others.
Ribot's earliest session work was featured on Tom Waits's ''
Rain Dogs
''Rain Dogs'' is the ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in September 1985 on Island Records. A loose concept album about "the urban dispossessed" of New York City, ''Rain Dogs'' is generally considered the middle ...
'' (1985) and helped define Waits's new musical direction. Ribot worked with Waits on many of his following albums including ''
Franks Wild Years
''Franks Wild Years'' is the tenth studio album by Tom Waits, released 1987 on Island Records. Subtitled "Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts", the album contains songs written by Waits and collaborators (mainly his wife, Kathleen Brennan) for a ...
Mule Variations
''Mule Variations'' is the thirteenth studio album by American musician Tom Waits, released on April 16, 1999, on the ANTI- label. It was Waits' first studio album in six years, following ''The Black Rider'' (1993). The album was backed by an ext ...
Bad as Me
''Bad as Me'' is the seventeenth and most recent studio album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released on October 21, 2011 by Anti- Records. The album is known to have been recorded as early as February 2011 and was officially announced ...
'' (2011). He has appeared on Elvis Costello's ''
Spike
Spike, spikes, or spiking may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Books
* ''The Spike'' (novel), a novel by Arnaud de Borchgrave
* ''The Spike'' (book), a nonfiction book by Damien Broderick
* ''The Spike'', a starship in Peter F. Hamilto ...
Kojak Variety
''Kojak Variety'' is a 1995 album by Elvis Costello, composed of cover songs written by others. Rhino Records reissued an expanded, double-CD in 2004 containing a bonus disc.
Background
Costello said in the liner notes this was a "record of s ...
'' (1995). Ribot has appeared on numerous recordings by John Zorn, including many of Zorn's ''Filmworks'' recordings, solo performances on Zorn's ''
Masada Guitars
''Masada Anniversary Edition Vol. 1: Masada Guitars'' is the first album in a series of five releases celebrating the 10th anniversary of John Zorn's Masada songbook project.
'' (also featuring
Bill Frisell
William Richard Frisell (born March 18, 1951) is an American jazz guitarist, composer and arranger. Frisell first came to prominence at ECM Records in the 1980s, as both a session player and a leader. He went on to work in a variety of contexts ...
and
Tim Sparks
Tim Sparks (born October 31, 1954) is an American acoustic guitar player, singer, arranger and composer.
Life
Raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he was given his first guitar when a bout of encephalitis kept him out of school for a year. T ...
), and is a member of Zorn's
Bar Kokhba Sextet
Bar Kokhba Sextet brings together six core members of Masada under the leadership of John Zorn. The music act is an improvisational group from New York's best downtown artists, including Cyro Baptista on percussion, Marc Ribot on guitar, Greg Coh ...
and Electric Masada.
Ribot's first two albums featured the Rootless Cosmopolitans, followed by an album of works by
Frantz Casseus
Frantz Casseus (14 December 1915 – 3 June 1993) was a Haitian-American guitarist and composer.
Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he spent most of his adult life in the United States where he immigrated in 1946 hoping to meet pia ...
for solo guitar. Further releases found him working in a variety of band and solo contexts including two albums with his self-described "dance band", Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos (Prosthetic Cubans), featuring compositions by
Arsenio Rodríguez
Arsenio Rodríguez (born Ignacio Arsenio Travieso Scull; 31 August 1911 – 30 December 1970)Giro, Radamés 2007. ''Diccionario enciclopédico de la música en Cuba''. La Habana, v. 4 p. 45 et seq. was a Cuban musician, composer and bandleader ...
.
Ribot admitted to ''
Guitar Player
''Guitar Player'' is an American popular magazine for guitarists, founded in 1967 in San Jose, California
San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and politica ...
'' a relatively limited technical facility due to learning to play right-handed despite being left-handed: "That's a real limit, one that caused me a lot of grief when I was working with Jack McDuff and realising I wasn't following in George Benson's footsteps. I couldn't be a straight-ahead jazz contender if you held a gun to my head."
He currently performs and records with his groups Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog with bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer
Ches Smith
Gordon McChesney "Ches" Smith is an American musician, whose primary instruments are drums, percussion, and vibraphone.
He recorded and performed an album of his own solo percussion pieces entitled ''Congs for Brums'' (2006). In 2010 he release ...
of the
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
band
Secret Chiefs 3
Secret Chiefs 3 (or SC3) is an American avant-garde group led by guitarist/composer Trey Spruance (of Mr. Bungle and formerly, Faith No More). Their studio recordings and tours have featured different lineups, as the group performs a wide ran ...
, Marc Ribot Trio with bassist
Henry Grimes
Henry Grimes (November 3, 1935 – April 15, 2020) was an American jazz double bassist and violinist.
After more than a decade of activity and performance, notably as a leading bassist in free jazz, Grimes completely disappeared from the music s ...
Anthony Coleman
Anthony Coleman (born August 30, 1955) is an avant-garde jazz pianist. During the 1980s and 1990s he worked with John Zorn on '' Cobra'', ''Kristallnacht'', '' The Big Gundown'', '' Archery'', and '' Spillane'' and helped push modern Jewish music ...
, bassist Brad Jones and percussionist EJ Rodriquez, and The Young Philadelphians, covering 1970s Philadelphia soul music with Philadelphia-based musicians bassist
Jamaaladeen Tacuma
Jamaaladeen Tacuma (born Rudy McDaniel; June 11, 1956) is an American free jazz bassist born in Hempstead, New York. He was a bandleader on the Gramavision label and worked with Ornette Coleman during the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in Coleman's P ...
and drummer G. Calvin Weston with guitarist Mary Halvorson plus a three-piece string section.
A biographical documentary film about Ribot was made, called ''The Lost String''.
Ribot was also a judge for the sixth annual Independent Music Awards.Independent Music Awards – 6th Annual Judges
Discography
* ''
Rootless Cosmopolitans
Rootless cosmopolitan () was a pejorative Soviet epithet which referred mostly to Jewish intellectuals as an accusation of their lack of allegiance to the Soviet Union, especially during the antisemitic campaign of 1948–1953. This campaign ...
'' (
Antilles
The Antilles (; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy; es, Antillas; french: Antilles; nl, Antillen; ht, Antiy; pap, Antias; Jamaican Patois: ''Antiliiz'') is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mex ...
, 1990)
* ''
Requiem for What's His Name
''Requiem for What's His Name'' is the second album by Marc Ribot & The Rootless Cosmopolitans which was released by the Belgian label Les Disques du Crepuscule in 1992.
Recording
The album was recorded in New York City at Sound on Sound Recordin ...
'' (
Les Disques du Crépuscule
Les Disques du Crépuscule is an independent record label founded in Belgium. The label was founded in 1980 by Michel Duval and Annik Honoré. It also had a prominent associated sublabel, Factory Benelux. Both are now run by former employee Ja ...
Shrek
''Shrek'' is a 2001 American computer-animated comedy film loosely based on the 1990 book of the same name by William Steig. It is the first installment in the ''Shrek'' franchise. The film was directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenso ...
'' (
Avant AVANT, also known as AVANT street art guerrilla collective, was the artist group active in New York City from 1980 to 1984. By 1984 AVANT had produced thousands of acrylic on paper paintings and plastered them on walls, doors, bus-stops and gallerie ...
, 1994)
* ''Subsonic 1: Sounds of a Distant Episode'' with Shrek (
Sub Rosa
''Sub rosa'' (New Latin for "under the rose") denotes secrecy or confidentiality. The rose has an ancient history as a symbol of secrecy.
History
In Hellenistic and later Roman mythology, roses were associated with secrecy because Cupid ga ...
Tzadik
Tzadik ( he, צַדִּיק , "righteous ne, also ''zadik'', ''ṣaddîq'' or ''sadiq''; pl. ''tzadikim'' ''ṣadiqim'') is a title in Judaism given to people considered righteous, such as biblical figures and later spiritual masters. The ...
Surrender to the Air
Surrender to the Air was a free jazz ensemble led by Trey Anastasio of Phish that included Marshall Allen, Damon Choice, and Michael Ray of the Sun Ra Orchestra, John Medeski, Marc Ribot, Oteil Burbridge
Oteil Burbridge is an American multi ...
The Prosthetic Cubans
''The Prosthetic Cubans'' is a studio album recorded in New York City by Marc Ribot with Los Cubanos Postizos and features compositions by Arsenio Rodríguez. It was the first album by The Prosthetic Cubans and was followed by '' ¡Muy Divertido!' ...
'' (
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
, 1998) with Los Cubanos Postizos
* '' Yo! I Killed Your God'' (Tzadik, 1999)
* '' ¡Muy Divertido!'' (Atlantic, 2000) with Los Cubanos Postizos
* ''
Saints
In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness
Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual res ...
'' (Atlantic, 2001)
* ''Inasmuch as Life is Borrowed'' (Ultima Vez, 2001) limited edition
* '' Scelsi Morning'' (Tzadik, 2003)
* '' Soundtracks Volume 2'' (Tzadik, 2003)
* ''
Spiritual Unity
''Spiritual Unity'' is a studio album by American free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler. It was recorded on July 10, 1964 in New York City, and features bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray. It was the first album recorded for Bernard Stollm ...
Party Intellectuals
''Party Intellectuals'' is the debut album by jazz fusion trio Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog. It was produced by Joel Hamilton and released June 24, 2008 on Pi Recordings.
Reception
Response was generally positive, with Metacritic assigning the al ...
'' (Pi, 2008) with Ceramic Dog
* ''
Silent Movies
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, whe ...
'' (Pi, 2010)
* ''
Your Turn
''Your Turn'' is a studio album by American guitarist Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog which was released in April 2013 on Northern Spy Records.
Reception
Metacritic assigned album an aggregate score of 88 out of 100 based on 5 critical reviews. The All ...
'' (
Northern Spy
The Northern Spy, also called 'Spy' and 'King', is a cultivar of domesticated apple that originated on the farm of Oliver Chapin in East Bloomfield, New York, in about 1840. It is popular in upstate New York.
The Northern Spy was one of four app ...
The Tune
''The Tune'' is a 1992 independent animated musical-comedy film directed by Bill Plympton.
Plot summary
Del, a hard-working songwriter, is trying to write the perfect song for his slimeball boss, Mr. Mega, so he can keep his job and his girlfr ...