Reflektor: Marc Ribot

By David Cristol

Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, November 15-18

After John Zorn in 2022 and Bill Frisell in 2023, the Reflektor event, which gives established artists, often associated with the jazz scene but whose skills stretch well beyond that genre, the opportunity to present a wide range of current and past projects, it was guitarist Marc Ribot’s turn, whose guitar sounds have bridged the underground and the popular, to make his strings resonate in the Elbphilharmonie. The unparalleled construction houses a hotel, restaurants, bars, shops, wide spaces and terraces with spectacular views over the city, port and river. Its architecture is as impressive as the acoustics of its music venues: an elevated shrine for listeners who gather to hear the man who helped shape the sound of Downtown New York from the 1980s onward. The program was made up of eight concerts, six by the master of ceremonies and two by bands featuring friends and colleagues, plus a listening session.

First Evening 

Photo by Daniel Dittus

Things start off with a set of solo acoustic guitar, the only time when sounds from the audience (coughing, sneezing, foot tapping…) are heard along with the music, without ruining the experience though. Such are the acoustics of the Kleine Saal that, when low-volume music is presented, the slightest movement from anyone can be perceived across the whole room. No need to worry though, as the next shows prove of the immersive and room-filling kind. The venue is in complete darkness, except for the light descending on the artist from the ceiling and some abstract projections on the black curtains at the back of the stage. Ribot’s face is bent towards his instrument, a posture which we’re used to seeing him adopt and which he seldom deviates from, except when he has to sing in the microphone. While a good chunk of the set seems improvised, it is announced to be based on new material from an upcoming solo album, the next entry in a series that started with Plays Solo Guitar Works of Frantz Casseus in 1993 (reissued in 2021 with extra tracks), some of which is performed tonight. The set oscillates between Hispanic meditations, remakes of Albert Ayler and John Coltrane (the rarely played “Amen”), clear-cut recitations accompanied by flexible tempi… Everything weighs in the balance: melody, texture, resonance, and that includes the space and the audience, all a part of the present moment’s proceedings. Ribot remains faithful to the song form, even when endeavoring deconstructions and alterations. His sound and touch are unique, his timing immaculate, setting the tone for things to come. 

Ceramic Dog. Photo by Daniel Dittus.

Ceramic Dog is a resolutely rock trio, in which there are few to no elements of jazz, even by a broad definition of the term, except for their shared revolutionary, life-affirming values and quest for social justice. Ches Smith and Shahzad Ismaily are both on drums at the start, before the latter switches to saturated electric bass, Moog keyboard and smaller odd instruments. The program is titled Connection, also the name of the trio’s latest effort. This Dog is frontally clawing and tearing at the home and foreign U.S. policies of the current era, with each guitar chord, bass note and drum hit vigorously, even aggressively carried out, an unrelenting sonic assault. The same goes for Ribot’s lyrics and declamatory style. The more is more approach does not always allow to understand the lyrics. This is crushing tribal punk rock with a vengeance, a transmutation of anger into music. One would imagine this level of energy to be the preserve of the rebellious youth. Not so for the septuagenarian, and there is no denying that the loudness option is consistent with the message, which doesn’t fail to draw cheers from the audience. Contrast and nuance will have to wait. The decibels go down a good notch during an atmospheric instrumental piece, a quasi-concrète score that stood out stylistically from the rest of the set, with strobing sound effects and a leaning towards the avant-garde. After which it’s back to familiar territory with yet another irate rock item and two encores, the first a heated western ride, the last a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Mr Tamborine Man.”

Second Evening

Hurry Red Telephone Quintet. Photo by Daniel Dittus.

 

 

The Hurry Red Telephone Quintet is a continuation of 2005’s Spiritual Unity project inspired by the music of Albert Ayler and initially comprising of Roy Campbell on trumpet, Chad Taylor on drums and a recently rediscovered and erstwhile Ayler colleague Henry Grimes on bass, later a trio without Campbell after the brass man’s passing in 2014. On bass, Hilliard Greene bears a physical resemblance to Grimes, down to wearing a sweat band and showcasing a similarly unconventional, forceful playing. Greene is the obvious anchor for the group. The guests turning the trio into a quintet are Mary Halvorson bringing a second guitar to the roster, and James Brandon Lewis. Their blend of free jazz and free rock involved poetry, acid-infused flights, shuffling rhythms… A multi-stylistic brew akin to some Aylerian afro-beat. Hunched over his guitar, Ribot kicks the gates of hell loose, before retreating to silence to let the quartet riff in the aftermath of his release of molten lava. The music is based on simple riffs and anthems, and a ballad has the sonorous Lewis at his most lyrical. Halvorson’s guitar is oftentimes drowned in that company. She makes the best of the situation and avoids entering into a competition with Ribot. The intensity increases as the show goes on and Coltrane's "Sunship" is delivered in a rapid-fire unruly version. A thunderous drum solo has everybody, on and off stage, turn their eyes towards Taylor. Here’s hoping for a studio or live recording. 

Red Lily Quintet. Photo by Daniel Dittus.

It’s James Brandon Lewis’ night as he plays two sets and heads one, which takes some stamina – and he has in it spades. The presence of the Red Lily Quintet, on its third date of a 14-shows tour of Europe, makes sense as Lewis is an occasional guest of Ribot, on Songs of Resistance and Ceramic Dog’s Connection. The Quintet performs material from the To Mahalia, With Love album. Mahalia Jackson’s exaggerated vocals and god-fearing repertoire isn’t my cup of bourbon, but the hefty tenor’s take manages to make the – mercifully wordless – gospel songs a joy to listen to, unlike the original versions bathed in none-too-subtle Hollywood strings. Focusing on the spirit rather than the letter, Lewis and the band deliver acoustic jazz of the highest order, like they did when opening the 2024 edition of the Jazz em Agosto festival. A change in the line-up has Lily Glick Finnegan on drums instead of Chad Taylor, bringing the band to three women (with Tomeka Reid on cello and Silvia Bolognesi on bass) and two men (Karl Berger’s disciple Kirk Knuffke on cornet, in addition to the leader). After the revelation that was Bolognesi in Lisbon, newcomer Finnegan also impresses, always forging ahead. Maybe the closed rectangular venue had a different effect on the band than the summertime outdoors amphitheater, as the music felt more compact this time, while retaining the same qualities such as the seemingly effortless interplay between Lewis and Knuffke (who likes to growl and quote from early jungle jazz), some inspired soloing and the delightful communication between the two string players. It’s Christmas already and the quintet takes us to church with a series of pieces often based on a single chord or revolving around a single bass note or repetitive line. New life is breathed into the spirituals, and the last piece exemplifies how much music can be summoned out of the flimsiest material. 

Los Cubanos Postizos. Photo by Daniel Dittus.

Los Cubanos Postizos’ material is culled from the band's two albums from 1998 and 2000. The main influence is that of Arsenio Rodriguez, from whom a good part of the repertoire is lifted, as seen through the lenses and culture of a North American player, ever displaying a biting energy, helped by his original cohorts consisting of Anthony Coleman on portable organ, Brad Jones on bass, Horacio »El Negro« Hernandez on drums and EJ Rodriguez on percussion. This show takes place in the main concert hall, aka the magnificent Großer Saal with its stage surrounded by curved and irregularly shaped balconies, with peculiar walls reminiscent of beehive cells (actually “10,000 individually micro-shaped drywall plates to disperse sound waves” , according to Wikipedia). The party-like music is well-suited to the room, more accustomed to symphonic orchestras. Ribot delivers short and cutting solos, interspersed with rhythmic workouts. This music never gets old, these salsa reworkings already ageless when they first came out. The simple and effective pieces are performed in succession, oblivious to the applause. Ribot could have carved a career out of this style, choosing instead to explore other areas and challenges, from contemporary to film music, and a lot of sideman work. Every note emanating from his guitar is trebly, dirty and undisciplined, but the overall feel here is that of relaxed grooves, with band members clearly enjoying themselves. In the higher mezzanines, a woman starts dancing, soon followed by other people, which the music certainly encourages. A nostalgia-tinged piece is a throwback to Ribot's playing with Portuguese band Dead Combo, live and on record. Each note is loaded with either the blues or saudade. A new crowd-pleaser on two chords allows the percussionists to shine, and we’re sent home after “Horacio in Havana,” not played in 17 years.

Final Day 

Photo by Daniel Dittus

The Listening Session opens the last day and is expertly and quietly moderated by Tom R. Schultz, Ribot proving a more talkative interviewee than Bill “man of few words” Frisell [review of Frisell's Reflektor Festival (in French)]. This is a welcome bonus to the concerts, allowing to share a moment with an artist listening to particular tracks on selected LPs and telling anecdotes or explaining how they were influential to them. Unlike Frisell, who focused entirely on U.S. records from the first half of the 1960s, Ribot chose a good chunk of records he took part in, or from artists he was inspired by and collaborated with. Emergency of expression appears as the common denominator here.

First LP on the turntable is an Albert Ayler record I had never seen before, Swing Low Sweet Spiritual, a February 1964 Quartet recording released in 1971. It was Ribot’s initial exposure to Ayler, on a friend’s advice, “Not pretty music but ritualistic and transformative, for the musicians as well as the audience.” A lengthy intro of exploratory abstract sounds and what sounds like a harpsichord eventually lead to a free fanfare with shrieking saxophone and hi-flying trumpet. The connection here is bass player Henry Grimes, who was part of this Quartet, and was much later called on to join Ribot’s “Ayler tribute band” Spiritual Unity, soon after Grimes reappeared on the scene after having disappeared for decades.

Next is soul music with a proto-drum’n’bass rhythm, courtesy of a classic track by Wilson Pickett, a carbon copy of the James Brown style of the 1960s, shouts and all. It’s coming from The Exciting Wilson Pickett LP (Atlantic), an album Ribot owned in his youth. He explains later playing with Pickett, which he describes as “a violent man”, as well as Eddie Floyd and Carla Thomas. Ribot talks about the structural closeness of country music and soul, which is an interesting reveal.

We switch to the contemporary era with an excerpt from Carla Bozulich’s Evangelista. The chosen song is ominous, with strings and unidentifiable instruments, with a feverish recitation, somewhere between Patty Waters and Patti Smith.“Political life in the U.S. has collapsed”, says Ribot. “But we have the church of Carla, Iggy Pop, Wilson Pickett”.

On to Ornette Coleman Prime Time, a forever influence on Ribot, with a track off the rarely spotted Of Human Feelings (why aren’t Prime Time records reissued?). The hurried tune, both funky and out, evokes the hustle and bustle of the streets of New York. Drummer Calvin Weston was heard alongside Ribot in Zorn’s Asmodeus band (The Book of Angels vol.7) as well as in The Young Philadelphians with Prime Time bass player Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Mary Halvorson. “Coleman was transforming pop music, like jazz has always done” , finger on the pulse of the times.

Poetry comes next with an excerpt from the Hal Willner-produced The Lion for real by Beat author Allen Ginsberg. The track “Aunt Rose” has Ginsberg’s spoken word coupled with violin and Ribot’s guitar. The weekend’s honoree evokes both his Jewish roots and his deceased pal Hal Willner, a producer who built a priceless series of thematic albums with stellar line-ups, covering the songbooks of Marc Bolan, Charles Mingus, Nino Rota, Thelonious Monk… Last but not least, Ribot chooses a song (with lyrics by Daniel Johnston), “King Kong” from Tom Waits’ Orphans. Waits seems to be making all sounds, from the human beatbox to the hallucinated preacher narration, apart from Ribot’s funky licks and searing blues interjections.

The listening session:

Film music

Shadows Choose their Horrors. Photo by Daniel Dittus.

Jennifer Reeves' Shadows Choose their Horrors is a half-an-hour black and white arthouse film that inserts silent-era film footage into newly shot scenes of a fragmentary gothic tale that remained outside of this viewer's understanding but involved poppy seed consumption and vampirism. The images were built from various techniques and effects, such as burning celluloid, scratches, short sequences in stop motion... Ribot’s love affair with film isn’t new and it was a nice touch to have included this side of his work in the program. He released records in the Film Music series on Tzadik, contributed to many of Zorn's own Filmworks (live and on record), scored feature films (France’s Gare du Nord is one) and released an album called Silent Movies. Ribot’s longtime friend and associate Anthony Coleman drew harpsichord and organ sounds from his vintage-looking keyboard, and the whole thing was on the exploratory side, enhancing the nightmarish pictures on the big screen. No clue was given as to why Ribot chose this particular cinematic work. 

Thumbscrew. Photo by Daniel Dittus.

 
Thumbscrew has issued eight albums on the Cuneiform label since 2014, up until this year’s Wingbeats. The program is titled Multicolored Midnight which is the name of the trio’s previous record. The generous set of complex, angular pieces proves gripping from start to finish, and some of the jazziest of the weekend (swing is a part of Thumbscrew’s equation), from the busy yet airy drumming of Tomas Fujiwara (who alternates with the vibraphone) to the warm, supple and unifying double bass of Michael Formanek and the chiseled, impossibly fast and spidery guitar playing of Mary Halvorson, who used her trademark effects sparingly. All members contribute compositions, without a trace of repetition or complacency. Hard to tell which piece was penned by whom, with the possible exception of Halvorson's tracks as some of the quirkiest compositions on display had much in common with that of her Code Girl project – which both other members have been a part of. The trio played without interruption or saying a word, facing abundant sheet music. Their tense, focused faces indicated that this is demanding music to play. And it is rewarding to listen to and marvel at the ideas and execution. Like with James Brandon Lewis’ Quintet, Thumbscrew was on tour, and the connection between Halvorson and Ribot allowed the trio to fit nicely in the program. 

Shrek. Photo by Daniel Dittus.

Two electric guitars (Ribot and Ava Mendoza), two drummers (Ches Smith and Chad Taylor), and Brad Jones on acoustic and electric bass make up this revisited and revised version of two 1990s Ribot bands. The first tune has Smith on piano, not a common sight. Rootless Cosmopolitans recorded two albums, in 1990 and 1992. Ribot has lost the charts of the material which hasn’t been played in 37 years, and tells us that this show “took more work than all of the other shows combined”. Less famous but just as interesting, Shrek was an immediate follow-up to the Cosmopolitans, in an aesthetic continuum – rougher and with a different line up. The eponymous 1994 album ended with a version of Ayler’s “Bells” and their live performances had some material overlap with the Cosmopolitans, as shown on a 1999 live release. The tunes are more painstakingly arranged than on the recordings of yore. The once messy downtowners are now seasoned pros, and Mendoza looks very serious indeed. It’s a tight unit. Like with the Cubanos, Ribot didn’t continue working with these bands for long, preferring to embark on new projects – until Ceramic Dog was launched, which in retrospect is the band with whom he toured and recorded the most. It’s rock at the core but letting other genres seep in, notably harmolodic funk. Best of the set and likely part of the Shrek repertoire, is a lengthy experimental piece, drumless, with grainy and choppy guitar emissions like intermittent radio buzzing, or dueling guitars throwing bursts of noise at each other, unlike the mostly song format of previous acts. We’re in guitar heaven. Ribot didn’t have a chance to look back on his past exploits before the Hamburg invitation, so we’re lucky to be in attendance and witness the results. Some negative remarks are heard from some in the audience as it didn’t sound a bit like the Rootless of the past, but this reporter was instead enthused by the artful and mighty update. More surprise awaits at the encore, with Ribot playing the E-flat horn.

A few days after the event, a short documentary with snippets of music and short interviews with the artists was released:

The 2025 series “Jazz at the Phil” will include Joe Lovano’s Paramount Quartet featuring Julian Lage, Asante Santi Debriano, Will Calhoun on January 30; Tyshawn Sorey Trio on February 11; Allison Miller & Myra Melford’s Lux Quartet on March 27; and Art Ensemble of Chicago on May 14.