Marc Ribot

Marc Ribot (originally from New Jersey, a classical guitar student under the Hawaiian master Frantz Casseus, in New York from 1978 as a session musician for soul artists) first came to prominence as guitarist for the Lounge Lizards from 1984 to 1988, and as a sideman for John Zorn, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and the Jazz Passengers.

Ribot’s guitar sounds are sometimes extremely cacophonous, and at other times they dance fluidly and swing. Even better, they often shift from one extreme to the other almost imperceptibly, displaying a blasphemous continuity of sensation even as the music becomes increasingly dissonant. His acknowledged master is Albert Ayler.

His first solo album was Rootless Cosmopolitans (Island, 1990). With Don Byron on clarinet, Anthony Coleman on keyboards, Richie Schwarz on drums, and Brad Jones on bass (all prominent names in New York’s avant-garde jazz scene), Ribot probably produced the first record that could be compared to Peter Green’s legendary End Of The Game. His strength lies in chameleonic tracks: Shortly After Takeoff launches on the wave of a grand fanfare rhythm, a detuned bell, duetting with clarinet in harmonic ugliness that would make Captain Beefheart envious. The combinations are equally striking: in Beak Lunch Manifesto, a blues with metallic timbres (Arto Lindsay plays the other guitar) is stoked by Roy Nathanson’s coarse saxophone and concluded with a chirp from Ribot’s guitar that exaggerates the black slide technique.
The jazz of Friendly Ghosts is a cross between Mingus and the Lounge Lizards, requiring maximum formal freedom, both for free dissonances and traditional passages. A sense of humor is never lacking, as per the New York bohemian handbook: nonsense amusements like Cocktail Party, a funky track in which a syncopated guitar motif is repeated monotonously, and Nature Abhors A Vacuum Cleaner, a comic theme “sung” by the guitar as it shatters the notes, separating each one before disappearing into the general cacophony.

Requiem For What's His Name (Crepuscule, 1992), featuring Ralph Carney, Anthony Coleman and others, would be more about high-brow composition than jazz or rock. although his eccentric wit betrays his roots in the age of punk. Requiem For What's His Name is an essay in minimalist repetition a` la Steve Reich disturbed by cabaret-tish dissonance. Disposable Head is a battle between an orthodox swing rhythm section and an atonal guitar, with the other instruments taking the side of one or the other. LaMonte's Nightmare is a surreal tribute to the father of droning minimalism deliverd by a clueless jazz band conducted by Dada in person and inevitably bound to plunge into degenerate cacophony. The glorious Captain Beefheart-ian blues Clever White youths (one of the few songs) is derailed by toy piano, comedian horns and kitchen percussion. The festive street fanfare for marching band First Time Every Time is reminiscent of Lol Coxhill's Welfare State, and the hilarious New is more of the same with just stronger doses of playfulness and craziness. On the other hand, the collective jam I Adolph 12 has no apparent center of mass and lets the musicians celebrate their convivial spirit. The unholy combo even covers Howling Wolf's Commit A Crime and Duke Ellington's Caravan.

Shrek (Avant, 1994) is an album of violent, unfriendly music, that even tries to capture the essence of Albert Ayler's Bells in the context of a combo with two electric guitars. Spigot begins like another minimalist piece in the vein of the Requiem, except that the tone is almost lugubrious (definitely not jovial) and David Shea's sampler adds a jarring cacophonous dimension. There are still hints of Ribot's caustic humor, notably the martial Hoist The Bloody Icon High borrows from Jimi Hendrix's performance of the national anthem. The ten-minute Human Sacrifice invests a lot in Ribot's guitar doodling instead of focusing on the percussive aspect that would turn it into the voodoo ceremony that it only hints at; hence the collective dance sounds rather like a childish nursery rhyme. The highlight of the album is the Glenn Branca-ian guitar tornado of Fourth World. Ribot's stroke of genius is to play it in a "stop and go" fashion, each "stop" being a pretext to restart at a furious, quasi-metal pace. The lengthy dissonant intermezzo of the second half is worth a standing ovation by itself. Shrek reaches even louder and denser heights of neurosis, although framed between a beginning and a coda that are sophisticated in their uncertainty. When it works, this album delivers Ribot at his best. Unfortunately, several pieces sound like filler.

Sounds Of A Distant Episode (Sub Rosa, 1994), an album split with guitarist Fred Frith, contains two his best surrealistic/classical compositions: Lobster Claw Symphonette and The Rise And The Fall Of.

Don't Blame Me (Japan, 1995) is a collection of pop and jazz traditionals given the Ribot treatment.

His virtuoso playing is on display on collaborations such as John Zorn's Book Of Heads (Tzadik, 1995) and Fred Frith's Sounds Of A Distant Episode (Subsonic, 1994) Shoe String Symphonettes (Tzadik, 1997) collects his works for cinema.

Marc Ribot wastes his stellar musicianship in a homage to Cuban composer Arsenio Rodriguez: Los Cubanos Postizos (Atlantic, 1998)

Yo I Killed Your God (Tzadik, 1999) is a live album recorded around the world.

Los Cubanos Postizos' second album, featuring keyboardist Anthony Coleman, is a more liberal take on the Cuban tradition. Muy Divertido (Atlantic, 2000) exploits the new wave of latin dance-music for some unrestrained fun.

Ribot's dance pieces Altogether Different and In As Much As Life Is Borrowed debuted in China and Belgium respectively.

From the title, Saints (Atlantic, 2001) is a tribute to Albert Ayler, of whom Ribot covers three compositions. The rest of the album is a similar display of erudite humility, as Ribot tackles different styles and different authors. As a recital of solo guitar, this is as close to perfection as one can get, but the artistic value is dubious.

Scelsi Morning (Tzadik, 2003) collects dance pieces. The album is mostly austere like none other from Ribot. The only exceptions are the war anthem Bataille, intoned by a distorted guitar amid torrential gongs as well as drunk horns, and the street jig The Youth Brigade Triumphs Again, which inherits the genes of both Albert Ayler and Lol Coxhill.
Ribot's chamber constructs are actually quite intriguing. Earth juxtaposes mindblowing guitar feedback, timpani-like percussion, rattling bells and sinister electronica. Scelsi Morning is a truly Scelsi-an movement for clarinet, pump organ, strings and bass. Identity I-Shmentity is a somber threnody for accordion and didjeridu-like drones that guitar and percussion try in vain to upset. The artistic peak (not only of this album) is the 12-minute Geese for clarinet, accordion, pump organ, violin, viola and guitar, that alternates brief minimalist repetitions, anguished counterpoint, Fred Frith-ian dissonance and traces of melodies. Ribot's guitar is often irrelevant.

Soundtracks II (Tzadik, 2003) is basically the second part of Shoe String Symphonettes.

Spiritual Unity (Pi, 2005) is an explicit tribute to Albert Ayler Not only does Ribot employ Ayler's original bassist Henry Grimes and set up a similar backing (Chad Taylor on drums and Roy Campbell on trumpet), but he plays his guitar in such a manner as to simulate as much as possible Ayler's saxophone (and even violin and cello). It is both a sincere tribute to his master and a virtuoso show of a guitarist who can use the guitar like a universal instrument. After Ribot's Invocation, four tracks reenact (more than merely cover) four Ayler classics, interpreting the spirit of Ayler's ritual jazz while retaining Ribot's unique post-modernist elegance.

Marc Ribot also played on the live album 17 Hippies Play Guitar (2006) by the 17 Hippies.

The title of Exercises in Futility (Tzadik, 2008) is accurate: Ribot spends an hour experimenting with relatively gentle and simple technicalities. This catalog of guitar etudes sounds like his artistic testament.

Party Intellectuals (Pi, 2008), credited to Ceramic Dog, a trio with bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Ches Smith of Secret Chiefs 3, is divided in short pieces that amount to a lightweight version of Ribot's postmodernist approach to musical conventions (distorting and deconstructing popular styles) and in longer pieces of abstract soundpainting relying on group improvisation and textural strokes (Digital Handshake, Midost, When We Were Young and We Were Freaks). The latter subtly juxtapose techniques learned from several decades of jazz, rock and electronic music.

Silent Movies (2010) collects film pieces for solo guitar subtly overdubbed by Keefus Ciancia on electronics. The main attractions are Natalia In E Flat Major, an elegy for agonizing glissandoes, Delancey Waltz, a pensive melody performed with neoclassical grace, Fat Man Blues, one of Ribot's best imitations of country blues, Postcard From N.Y., the best of the "folktronica" pieces, that begins with an electronic nebula but it is a simple guitar meditation, but mostly these are slow pieces played too self-consciously.

Ceramic Dog's Your Turn (Northern Spy, 2013), with the delirious Your Turn and Ritual Slaughter, and YRU Still Here? (Northern Spy, 2018) spanned a broader stylistic territory, heavy on keyboards and samples, but the songs and instrumentals stuck to more conventional formats. Quoting one of his titles, "exercises in futility".

Ribot also joined John Zorn's Dreamers, a concept that recorded heroic stylistic messes like Dreamers (Tzadik, 2008), O'o (february 2009), and Pellucidar - A Dreamers Fantabula (Tzadik, 2015).

The live Nearness And You (june 2015) documents the acoustic septet of the Jazz Passengers' Roy Nathanson (alto, soprano & baritone saxes, vocals), Arturo O'Farrill, Anthony Coleman and Myra Melford (all on piano), Marc Ribot (acoustic guitar), and Curtis Fowlkes and Lucy Hollier (trombones).

The guitar trio of Elliott Sharp, Mary Halvorson and Marc Ribot recorded Err Guitar (july 2016).

Seb El Zin (guitar, vocals), Mike Ladd (vocals), Arto Lindsay (guitar), Marc Ribot (guitar) formed Anarchist Republic of Bzzz, documented on Anarchist Republic of Bzzz (2009) and United Diktaturs of Europe (2016).

Songs of Resistance 1942-2018 (2018) collects covers of political songs from World War II to the Donald Trump era.

Ceramic Dog released the six-song mini-album What I Did On My Long Vacation (2020) and the full-length Hope (2021). The latter contains the anemic dirge B-Flat Ontology and the neurotic, Neil Young-esque, ten-minute jam The Long Goodbye.