Marc Ribot is a completely unclassifiable guitarist who consistently plays creative and unpredictable music. He was born in Newark in 1954. He gained early experience as a teenager studying with Haitian classical guitarist Frantz Casseus and playing in garage bands. Ribot moved to New York in 1978, was a member of the punk group Realtones and gained some attention during 1984-89 when he was part of John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards. He also worked during the era with Jack McDuff, Wilson Pickett, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas and Chuck Berry. Since that time Ribot has been a major part of the New York downtown music scene and has performed and recorded with a remarkable variety of artists including Tom Waits (Rain Dogs), Solomon Burke, Elvis Costello, Marianne Faithfull, Arto Lindsay, Laurie Anderson, McCoy Tyner, T-Bone Burnett, The Jazz Passengers, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Medeski Martin & Wood, James Carter, Alan Toussaint, Allen Ginsburg, Madeleine Peyroux, Alison Krauss and John Zorn.

Ribot, who recorded an album of Frantz Casseus’ classical works, has led and recorded with such bands as Rootless Cosmopolitans, Shrek, and Los Cubanos Postizos. He has also recorded solo albums for Tzadik, DIW and Atlantic. In addition, Ribot has performed on film scores, written some of his own, performed a guitar concerto with an orchestra that was written specifically for him by Stewart Wallace, and played a major part in starting the Radical New Jewish Culture Festival. Ribot’s current bands are the Albert Ayler tribute group Spiritual Unity (which includes bassist Henry Grimes and has recorded for Pi) and Ceramic Dog.

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