Melvin Gibbs is a bass guitarist, composer, and producer whose 40-year career has featured work with Defunkt, Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society, Eye and I, Sonny Sharrock, John Zorn, Rollins Band, Eddie Palmieri, Femi Kuti, and Arto Lindsay, among many others. He is currently one-third of the trio Harriet Tubman with guitarist Brandon Ross and drummer J.T. Lewis. In the 1980s, he was an original member of the Black Rock Coalition.
Melvin Gibbs on social media
The musical avant-garde is an area where creative people who have earned wisdom through a lifetime of experience can flourish. Wadada Leo Smith, who last … Read More “William Parker Keeps Refining His Approach to the Bass—and Music”
“We reserve the right to be normal.” On December 7, 1985, at the request of my good friend Vernon Reid, I hopped on the subway … Read More “Melvin Gibbs Remembers Greg Tate”
Is Merriam-Webster’s definition of jazz, “American music developed especially from ragtime and blues,” valid in South Africa or Brazil? Is the first sentence of the … Read More “What Is Jazz?”
What we went to offer is a positive notion, a positive offering, a positive spirit. Some of it of course expressed both joy and pain. … Read More “The Changing Nature of Protest in Jazz”
