Audio By Carbonatix
Last Night: Marc Ribot
The Kessler
December 1, 2011
Better than: Not crying
Listening to guitarist Marc Ribot have his way with a song is an adventure. The kind of adventure Griffin Dunne found himself on in the film After Hours. You think you’re going on a simple date, but before you know it she’s dead and you find yourself being mohawk’d (and worse) before somehow being returned safely.Ribot is a guy who can play, and his virtuosity is matched by imagination.
Last night, Ribot returned to the
Kessler to take a small, reverent audience on a wild ride.
As with his appearance last year, he began the set with a piece
by Albert Ayler; in this case “Holy, Holy.” The
fifteen-plus minute free jazz piece gave Ribot an opportunity to roam
unrestrained up and down the neck of his old Gibson acoustic. With
amazing precision and clarity, the song was a warm-up to 75 minutes
of stunning guitar work.
As always, Ribot played seated and
hunched over the guitar, seemingly as lost in the performance as the
audience. Combining elements of flamenco, classical, jazz and rock
in his improvisation, each song presented a kind of discovery that
unfolds for both audience and performer. The purity of sound he
renders from that guitar is angelic. After completing a song, he would
typically have some quip: “I see there are some
fans of Bix Beiderbecke here. Good ol’ Bix.”
Besides Ayler and “Bix,” the set
included Coltrane’s Dearly Beloved. For the first encore he
sang Stonewall Jackson’s “Angel on My Mind (That’s Why I’m
Walking).” The second
encore was John Lurie’s “Blow Job.”
Ribot cast a spell on the audience. For the entirety of the performance, there was hardly a fidget, a sneeze, a
whisper. There was the occasional tear. I have no idea how the economics of
that performance worked for anyone involved on the business side of
the evening, given the light turnout, but for those who were there,
it was an unforgettable experience. And if the opportunity to
experience it is ever offered to you again, for God’s sake don’t
pass on it.
Multi-instrumentalist Mark Growden started the evening playing a
bicycle handlebar like a recorder, before switching to accordion then
banjo, singing mostly original songs that paid homage to his new
hometown of New Orleans. A very polished bit of entertainment.
Critic’s Notebook
Personal Bias: Nothing bores
me more than soulless, technical virtuosity on any musical
instrument. This was not that kind of performance. The emotion of
some of the passages did bring tears to my eyes.
