Jazz Articles about Marc Ribot

Marc Ribot: That's the Way I View It From New York

by Paul Olson
March 27, 2006

Guitarist/composer Marc Ribot's played with Elvis Costello, Arto Lindsay, John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Tom Waits, John Lurie, Wilson Pickett, Anthony Coleman, Don Byron and about a million other musicians. As a leader, he's led such groups as Shrek and the Rootless Cosmopolitans and written and performed a wildly varied body of work on his own recordings. His fusion of blues and r&b with improv and punk rock was one of the cornerstones of the Downtown/Knitting Factory sensibility of the 1980s ...

Marc Ribot: Spiritual Unity

by Nenad Georgievski
October 3, 2005

Spiritual Unity is the latest effort by versatile virtuoso guitarist/composer Marc Ribot since Saints, from four years ago. He takes this opportunity to explore the legacy of Albert Ayler, one of the giants of free jazz. The new unit he gathered for this occasion, featuring drummer Chad Taylor, trumpeter Roy Campbell, and the legendary bassist Henry Grimes, with whom Ayler recorded some of his seminal recordings during the '60s, is as multitalented and flexible as the leader himself.

Ribot/Campbell/Grimes/Taylor: Spiritual Unity

by Jeff Stockton
August 26, 2005

When Albert Ayler went down into the East River, he simply wouldn't have believed that after 35 years he would be held in the highest esteem and the subject of a genuine revival. He always wanted us to focus on the sound rather than the notes, but we weren't quite ready to receive his message: musical vibrations mark the path to transcendence.

Led by guitarist Marc Ribot on this self-titled debut, Spiritual Unity searches for the essence of Ayler through ...

Marc Ribot: Spiritual Unity

by Mark Corroto
May 9, 2005

When you speak of the giants of free jazz--the signatories of its constitution, so to speak--you are obliged to include saxophonist Albert Ayler. But curiously enough, his immediately recognizable music, although revered, had no direct followers. His compositions have been covered, but not like those of John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman. Maybe he was too much of an iconoclast to be copied.

Ayler died in 1970; his body was found floating in the East River. It was never ...

Marc Ribot: Scelsi Morning

by Nenad Georgievski
March 15, 2005

Marc Ribot Scelsi Morning Tzadik 2005

It would be diminishing and inappropriate to say that Marc Ribot is an eclectic guitarist as too many artists fall into this category. Even using a term such as abstract is not suitable. What is certain is that his work defies categorization, it has been changing our perception of the guitar as an instrument and its real possibilities. Very few people can match some of the experiences he ...

A Fireside Chat with Marc Ribot

by AAJ Staff
February 21, 2004

I love pleasant surprises. Like watching the new X-Men movie and expecting tragedy to unfold on screen and instead, getting quite an entertaining couple of hours for my cynicism. That is the same pleasant experience I had in listening to Marc Ribot's Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos, one of my top ten recordings of that particular year. So I have been waiting on pins and needles for his follow up, Muy Divertido. Ribot sat down with me from his ...

Marc Ribot: Saints

by David Adler
December 1, 2001

Perhaps the most interesting facet of Marc Ribot's solo guitar exposition is its focus on Albert Ayler. Three of the four compositions from Ayler's 1964 recording Witches and Devils appear on the disc, beginning with “Saints," on which Ribot emulates Ayler's austere saxophone cries on guitar or a guitar-like instrument (it's hard to tell). The tone is brittle, the attack aggressive, the pitches practically microtonal--a friend remarked on a certain similarity to Chinese music (echoes of Armstrong on bebop?). The ...