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. 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 ...

Elvis Costello Declan Patrick MacManus OBE (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer-songwriter and record producer. He has won multiple awards in his career, including a Grammy Award in 2020, and has twice been nom ...

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 ...

and

John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of j ...

Biography

Marc Ribot was born in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat, seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County and the second largest city within the New Yo ...

. He grew up in the Montrose section of

South Orange, New Jersey South Orange, officially the Township of South Orange Village, is a suburban township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the village's population was 16,198, reflecting a decline of 766 (4.5%) fro ...

. He has worked extensively as a session guitarist. He has performed and recorded with

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 ...

Jack McDuff Eugene McDuff (September 17, 1926 – January 23, 2001), known professionally as "Brother" Jack McDuff or "Captain" Jack McDuff, was an American jazz organist and organ trio bandleader who was most prominent during the hard bop and soul jazz ...

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 ''Bil ...

, The Lounge Lizards,

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,

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 portrait ...

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,

Robert Plant Robert Anthony Plant (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer and songwriter, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the English rock band Led Zeppelin for all of its existence from 1968 until 1980, when the band broke up following th ...

and

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 wit ...

, Susana Baca,

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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 ...

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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, 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 ...

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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 ...

Robert Quine Robert Wolfe Quine (December 30, 1942 – May 31, 2004) was an American guitarist. A native of Akron, Ohio, Quine worked with a wide range of musicians, though he himself remained relatively unknown. Critic Mark Deming wrote that "Quine's eclect ...

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, and others. Ribot's earliest session work was featured on Tom Waits's '' Rain Dogs'' (1985) and helped define Waits's new musical direction. Ribot worked with Waits on many of his following albums including '' Franks Wild Years'' (1987), '' Big Time'' (1988), ''

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 exte ...

'' (1999), '' Real Gone'' (2004), '' Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards'' (2006) and ''

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'' (1989), '' Mighty Like a Rose'' (1991), and '' Kojak Variety'' (1995). Ribot has appeared on numerous recordings by

, including many of Zorn's ''Filmworks'' recordings, solo performances on Zorn's '' Masada Guitars'' (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 Steel-string guitar, 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 ...

), and is a member of Zorn's Bar Kokhba Sextet 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 pianist ...

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 bandleade ...

. 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: Theoretica ...

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 and drummer Chad Taylor of Chicago Underground, Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos with Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez on drums and original members pianist

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 and drummer G. Calvin Weston with guitarist

Mary Halvorson Mary Halvorson (born October 16, 1980) is an American avant-garde jazz composer and guitarist from Brookline, Massachusetts. Among her many collaborations, she has: led a trio with and Ches Smith, and a quintet with the addition of Jon Irabag ...

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'' (

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 Recordi ...

'' (

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 Jam ...

, 1992) * '' Marc Ribot Plays Solo Guitar Works of Frantz Casseus'' (Les Disques du Crépuscule, 1993) * ''

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 Jen ...

'' ( Avant, 1994) * ''Subsonic 1: Sounds of a Distant Episode'' with Shrek ( Sub Rosa/Subsonic 1994, split album with

Fred Frith Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock ...

) * '' The Book of Heads'' (

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. Th ...

, 1995) composed by

* '' Don't Blame Me'' ( DIW, 1995) *''

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 ...

(1996)'' * '' Shoe String Symphonettes'' (Tzadik, 1997) * '' The Prosthetic Cubans'' (

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 ...

, 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, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Orth ...

'' (Atlantic, 2001) * ''Inasmuch as Life is Borrowed'' (Ultima Vez, 2001) limited edition * '' Scelsi Morning'' (Tzadik, 2003) * '' Soundtracks Volume 2'' (Tzadik, 2003) * '' Spiritual Unity'' ( Pi, 2005) * '' Exercises in Futility'' (Tzadik, 2008) * '' Party Intellectuals'' (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'' ( Northern Spy, 2013) with Ceramic Dog * '' Live at the Village Vanguard'' (Pi, 2014) with Henry Grimes and Chad Taylor * '' The Young Philadelphians: Live in Tokyo'' (Yellowbird, 2016) with the Young Philadelphians * '' YRU Still Here?'' (Northern Spy, 2018) with Ceramic Dog * '' Songs of Resistance: 1942–2018'' (Anti-, 2018) * '' What I Did On My Long Vacation'' (Northern Spy (exclusively on Bandcamp), 2020) with Ceramic Dog * ''

Hope Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include: "expect with confidence" and "to cherish ...

'' (Northern Spy / Yellowbird / P-Vine, 2021) with Ceramic Dog

Filmography

* ''

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 ...

'' (1992) * '' Sabbath in Paradise'' (1998) * ''

The Soul of a Man ''The Soul of a Man'' is a 2003 documentary film, directed by Wim Wenders, as the second instalment of the documentary film series ''The Blues'', produced by Martin Scorsese. The film explores the musical careers of blues musicians Skip James, ...

'' (directed by

Wim Wenders Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer. He is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among many honors, he has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Docu ...

) (2003) * '' A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky: 12 Stories About John Zorn'' (2004) * '' The Lost String'' (directed by Anais Prosaic)'' (2007) * ''

Gare du Nord The Gare du Nord (; English: ''station of the North'' or ''Northern Station''), officially Paris-Nord, is one of the six large mainline railway station termini in Paris, France. The station accommodates the trains that run between the capital ...

'' (2013)

References

External links

Marc Ribot
official website * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ribot, Marc Northern Spy Records artists 1954 births Living people Musicians from Newark, New Jersey 20th-century American guitarists 21st-century American guitarists American experimental guitarists American male guitarists American jazz guitarists American rock guitarists Pi Recordings artists Tzadik Records artists Avant-garde guitarists Guitarists from New Jersey 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians American male jazz musicians The Lounge Lizards members The Jazz Passengers members Surrender to the Air members DIW Records artists Antilles Records artists Atlantic Records artists Intakt Records artists Anti- (record label) artists