Marc Ribot 70th Birthday Celebration

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.

Celebrating his 70th birthday, Ribot joins forces with two of the most celebrated and searching jazz artists on the contemporary scene, guitarist Mary Halvorson and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, along with bassist Hilliard Greene and longtime collaborator Chad Taylor on drums.

Fellow guitar explorer Halvorson is a 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow who has become familiar to SFJAZZ audiences with the collective trio Thumbscrew and leading her own song-based band Code Girl. Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis has emerged in recent years as a creative force, winning a series of jazz critics’ polls, including best album of 2023 with his Red Lily Quintet’s For Mahalia, With Love.