Marc Ribot

Marc Ribot (pronounced REE-bow) was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1954. As a teen, he played guitar in various garage bands while studying with his mentor, Haitian classical guitarist and composer Frantz Casseus. After moving to New York City in 1978, Ribot became a member of the soul/punk Realtones, and from 1984–1989, of John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards. Between 1979 and 1985, Ribot also worked as a side musician with Brother Jack McDuff, Wilson Pickett, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Chuck Berry, and many others.

Rolling Stone points out that “guitarist Marc Ribot helped Tom Waits refine a new, weird Americana on 1985’s Rain Dogs, and since then he’s become the go-to guitar guy for all kinds of roots-music adventurers: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp.” Additional recording credits include work with Soloman Burke, Neko Case, Diana Krall, Beth Orton, Marianne Faithful, Arto Lindsay, Caetano Veloso, Laurie Anderson, Susana Baca, McCoy Tyner, The Jazz Passengers, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Cibo Matto, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, James Carter, Vinicio Capposella (Italy), Auktyon (Russia), Vinicius Cantuaria, Sierra Maestra (Cuba), Alain Bashung (France), Marisa Monte, Allen Ginsburg, Madeleine Peyroux, Sam Phillips, and more recently, Laurie Anderson, Joe Henry, Allen Toussaint, Norah Jones, Akiko Yano, The Black Keys, Jeff Bridges, Jolie Holland, Elton John/Leon Russell, Ceu, and many others. Ribot frequently collaborates with producer T Bone Burnett, most notably on Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s Grammy Award-winning Raising Sand and regularly works with composer John Zorn.

Ribot has released more than 25 albums under his own name over a 40-year career, exploring everything from the pioneering jazz of Albert Ayler with his group Spiritual Unity (Pi Recordings), to the Cuban son of Arsenio Rodríguez with two critically acclaimed releases on Atlantic Records leading Marc Ribot Y Los Cubanos Postizos. His avant power trio/post-rock band Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog continues the lineage of his earlier experimental no-wave/punk/noise groups Rootless Cosmopolitans (Island Antilles) and Shrek (Tzadik). Ribot’s solo recordings include Marc Ribot Plays the Complete Works of Frantz Casseus, John Zorn’s The Book of Heads (Tzadik), Don’t Blame Me (DIW), Saints (Atlantic), Exercises in Futility (Tzadik), and Silent Movies, released in 2010 on Pi Recordings and described as a “down-in-mouth-near masterpiece” by the Village Voice. The year 2014 marked a monumental release: Marc Ribot Trio Live at the Village Vanguard (Pi Recordings), which was singled out by Downbeat Magazine and NPR as one of the best albums of the year. 2018 saw the ambitious release of two politically charged albums: YRU Still Here? (Northern Spy/Yellowbird), the long awaited third album from Ribot’s post-rock/noise trio Ceramic Dog, and Songs of Resistance 1942–2018 (featuring guest vocalists Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Meshell Ndegeocello, and others on Anti Records), voicing anger and outrage during our turbulent times, with both albums landing on various “Best of 2018” lists.

For 2025, the long-awaited, 30-years-in-the-making Map of a Blue City made its debut on New West Records. This collection of songs features Ribot’s imaginative playing and has led to what may be his definitive statement as an instrumentalist, as a songwriter, and even as a singer. Jazzwise magazine’s four-star review states, “Ribot needs no introduction. But nothing prepares us for Map of a Blue City. … Beyond jazz, steeped in humanity … an album of the year.”

Ribot has performed on scores such as The Kids Are All Right, Where the Wild Things Are, Walk the Line, Everything is Illuminated, and Martin Scorsese’ The Departed, He has also composed original scores including for the French film Gare du Nord (Simon); the PBS documentary Revolucion: Cinco Miradas; the film Drunkboat, starring John Malkovich and John Goodman; the documentary films Joe Schmoe and Under the Highline; Discovery Channel’s limited series Queen of Meth; a feature film by director Joe Brewster titled The Killing Zone; and the dance pieces In as Much as Life is Borrowed by Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus and Yoshiko Chuma’s Altogether Different. Along with this live performance of his solo guitar score to Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid, Ribot also occasionally performs live film scores to Jennifer Reeves’ experimental short films.

In 2009, Ribot was named curator and musical director for that year’s Century of Song Festival, part of the Ruhr Triennale in Germany. The concert series sparked new collaborations with Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, master cajón player Juan Medrano Cotito, Carla Bozulich, and Tine Kindermann.

An invitation from the historic Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg for its REFLEKTOR series capped 2024, showcasing Ribot’s diverse career and revisiting earlier projects and new ventures with performances reuniting the Rootless Cosmopolitans, Shrek, and Los Cubanos Postizos, alongside active bands Ceramic Dog and Hurry Red Telephone.

Most recently, in 2025, for the 60th anniversary of Jazzaldia in San Sebastian (one of the world’s longest running jazz festivals), Ribot was awarded the Donostiako Jazzaldia Prize along with Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Bruford, an honor bestowed on outstanding artists in recognition of their contributions to jazz. Also that year, Ribot performed as part Solo, Hurry Red Telephone, and Ceramic Dog.

Ribot’s talents have been showcased with full symphony orchestra. Composer Stewart Wallace wrote a guitar concerto specifically for him and the piece was premiered by the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC in July of 2004; it was also heard the following year at the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz.

Ribot is also an author; his first collection of writings, Unstrung: Rants & Stories of a Noise Guitarist, was published by Akashic Books in 2021. Unstrung is also available as an audio book with Ribot narrating, and has been translated into French and Italian, with German and Japanese editions planned for the future.