Melvin Gibbs

Melvin Gibbs is a composer, musician, artist, and writer born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. who now lives in Minneapolis. Time Out New York has called him "the greatest bassist in the world," and he is the 2019 winner of JazzTimes Magazine's Critics Poll in the Electric Bass category. For more than 20 years he has been a member of the band Harriet Tubman, and his wide-ranging resume includes the Rollins Band, Defunkt, The Decoding Society, Power Tools with Bill Frisell and Ronald Shannon Jackson, and the Zig Zag Power Trio with Vernon Reid and Will Calhoun of Living Colour. His performance and production credits include work with David Byrne, dead prez, Sonny Sharrock, Caetano Veloso, Wadada Leo Smith, Eddie Palmieri, Arto Lindsay, and DJ Logic. His book on how Black music took over the world is forthcoming from Basic Books.