Guitarist

An iconoclast guitarist and fixture of New York’s downtown music scene for decades, Marc Ribot lends his distinctive musical personality to a live score for a special screening of Charlie Chaplin’s 1921 silent masterpiece, The Kid.

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Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid Marc Ribot, guitar

University of California, Berkeley

Lage's final night as Resident Artistic Director pairs him with the iconoclastic guitar genius Marc Ribot, who returns following his 70th Birthday celebration in September of 2024.

A singular instrumentalist, Ribot follows his muse wherever it leads, resulting in a career path that has ranged across free jazz and no wave, rock, film music, and Cuban rumba. Beyond his wildly eclectic output as a leader, which has veered from the rollicking Los Cubanos Postizos project and the avant-rock Ceramic Dog to a solo guitar score to Charlie Chaplin’s 1921 silent classic The Kid, Ribot is best known as a key collaborator with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, John Zorn, the Lounge Lizards, Diana Krall, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (contributing to their 2007 hit album Raising Sand).

Julian Lage DUET FOR GUITARS

SFJAZZ Center

Commissioned and premiered in Jan 2010 by the NY Guitar Festival at Merkin Hall. Marc Ribot’s delicate and at times haunting solo guitar score contemporizes this classic Chaplin film to a story relevant to the economic and social conditions following the housing market crash of 2008 (which occurred shortly before the commissioning of this work).

Marc Ribot – Live solo guitar score for Chaplin’s ‘The Kid’

Count Basie Center for the Arts

Guitarist extraordinaire Marc Ribot follows his muse wherever it leads, resulting in a career path that has ranged across free jazz and no wave, rock and Cuban rumba. In some circles he’s best known as a key collaborator with singular artists such as Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, John Zorn, Diana Krall, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (contributing to their 2007 hit album Raising Sand).

The last time the mind-bogglingly eclectic checked into the SFJAZZ Center he played eight solo shows in the JHL, alternating between freely improvised sets, extended medleys of Haitian-American composer Frantz Casseus, Cuban maestro Arsenio Rodríguez and John Coltrane, and his gorgeous score for the 1924 Soviet silent film Aelita: Queen of Mars.

Marc Ribot 70th Birthday Celebration

Marc Ribot’s four months with jazz organ legend Brother Jack McDuff were his first ever with an internationally touring artist. Although the two never recorded together (due to artistic differences that became apparent in Ribot’s later work… Brother Jack reportedly spent much of their stage time fixing Ribot with what side musicians referred to as his “death ray”), Ribot never lost his affection for McDuff’s music and the Hammond organ-dominated soul jazz scene from which it emerged.

Marc Ribot: The Jazz-Bins

Dakota

Belonging is a casting of a convalescent spell set to music and text. 

This immersive experience work features Carl Hancock Rux - Orator, Marc Ribot - Guitar, Yayoi Ikawa - Piano/ Keys, Melissa Slocum - Bass, Wil Calhoun - Drums, images/visuals by Ehab Omar, and composed by Jay Rodriguez Sierra - Reeds.

Jay Rodriguez Sierra: Belonging

Joe's Pub

Marc Ribot, who the New York Times describes as “a deceptively articulate artist who uses inarticulateness as an expressive device,” has released 25 albums under his own name over a 40-year career, exploring everything from the pioneering jazz of Albert Ayler to the Cuban son of Arsenio Rodríguez. His solo release,“Silent Movies”(Pi Recording 2010) has been described as a”down-in-mouth-near master piece” by the Village Voice and has landed on several Best of 2010 lists including the LA Times and critical praise across the board, and 2014 saw the monumental release: Marc Ribot Trio Live at the Village Vanguard(Pi Recordings), documenting Marc’s first headline and the return of Henry Grimes at the historical venue in 2012 and included onBest of 2014 lists such as Downbeat magazine and NPR’s 50 Favorites.  2021 is filed with a flurry of activity and releases including Ceramic Dog’s HOPE, recorded during the pandemic, plus two reissues on vinyl for the first time: 1993’s long out-of-print Marc Ribot Plays Solo Guitar Works of Frantz Casseus & Silent Movies (2010). Additionally, Marc’s first collection of writings, Unstrung: Rants & Stories of a Noise Guitarist, will be published by Akashic Books this August with an audiobook also in the works, and Marc’s original score for limited series documentary, Queen of Meth, will premiere on the Discovery Channel

Guitarist

Marc Ribot

Events

Past events

Mar 7, 2026

Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid Marc Ribot, guitar · Cal Performances

Feb 23, 2025

Julian Lage DUET FOR GUITARS · San Francisco Jazz

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