photo by Clifton Romig

Kurt Ribak (pronounced REE-bok, like the shoes) - bassist

March 2010 Gigs

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Online Press Kit

Press Release - Yoshi's San Francisco June 30 2009 concert
EPK (Electronic Press Kit) bio profile by KCSM-FM announcer Michael Burman musical styles and influences reviews photo mp3s Kurt Ribak Trio Myspace site

Video interview of Kurt Ribak

This video interview was made by Lincoln Adler - www.LincolnAdler.com. Lincoln plays with us often and is the saxophonist of Times 4, the jazz-funk group Greg Sankovich also plays in.

Kurt Ribak Trio at Yoshi's San Francisco - June 30, 2009

The above was made by Sarah, a neat Berkeley kid, while listening to us one night. She has since come to see the band repeatedly.

on to the gigs....

So - things are a little quiet for the Kurt Ribak Trio these days, but that's because I am working with a lot of other people as a sideman.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS- we are returning to Yoshi's - but this time we play the Oakland Yoshi's

Kurt Ribak Quartet
Yoshi's - Oakland (NOT Yoshi's SAN FRANCISCO like last year)
http://www.yoshis.com/oakland
510 Embarcadero West - between Washington & Clay Streets
Oakland, CA
Monday, July 19
8 PM - One set only
$14

Last year we played Yoshi's San Francisco. It was one of the high points of my life. This year we play Yoshi's Oakland, the mother ship. I've wanted to play here since it opened, and wanted to do it with my own group. Now it will happen.

Greg Sankovich piano, Lincoln Adler saxes, Matt Willis drums, and me on bass.

This is several months away, but that means it will be easier to plan attending. This will almost certainly our biggest gig of 2010 - we hope you can attend and help make it a success. Yoshi's finds that acts often don't do as well on their return engagement. We want to buck that trend.

I played in a production of "THE WAVE" by Marsh Youth Theater
at The Marsh in San Francisco - http://www.themarsh.org/myt_perform.html

Here's a review - SF Bay Times

March Dates

March 2, 8 PM to 10:30 PM
Sheilani Alix - w/ Steven Strauss, Tim Fox, and Kurt Ribak
Cafe Royale
http://www.caferoyale-sf.com
800 Post Street - at Leavenworth
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415) 441-4099

Cafe Royale is a great little room. I played here with Lorna K a few months ago and really enjoyed it. Singer Sheila Alix will have a heavyweight the local luminary Steven Strauss with her, as well as my buddy Tim Fox. There should be good times and good music resulting.

Saturday, March 6, 9:30 PM to 12:30 AM
Kurt Ribak Quartet - original jazz
The Albatross
1822 San Pablo Avenue (two blocks north of University, west side of the street)
Berkeley, CA 94710
510-843-2473 (510-THE-BIRD)
http://www.albatrosspub.com/
21 and over
$3.00 Cover charge
Albatross front

The Albatross (aka The Bird) has been around since 1964. Current owners Wendy Halambeck and Linda Zsilavetz did a wonderful job of revitalizing the place without losing the charm it had. There are lots of board games available, lots of room for darts, a nice fireplace in the back, and food. It's a friendly comfortable place, and is very popular with the college and post-college crowd.

This will feature Matt Willis on drums, Lincoln Adler on sax, me on bass, and Greg Sankovich on keyboards.

Friday, March 12 - 7 PM to 10 PM
Lorna K - with Robin Lewis on guitar, Kurt Ribak bass - jazz vocals
Cafe Leila
1724 San Pablo Avenue - by Francisco St.
Berkeley, CA 94702
(510) 525-7544

This is a cafe on San Pablo a block north of The Albatross. They don't have a beer and wine license but you can BYOB. There is parking right next to the place and they have a lot of very positive food reviews. Robin and I will be blocking the lovely Miss Lorna.

Sunday, March 14 - 3:30 PM to 5 PM
Dan Damon Quartet - jazz and sacred music from a jazz point of view
Santa Maria Catholic Church
http://www.santamariaparish.info/
40 Santa Maria Way
Orinda, CA 94563
(925) 524-2426

It's gonna be a church - filled Sunday for me. I will be playing my regular two services at Moraga Valley Presbyterian in Moraga. Then I will toddle down the road to Orinda and play with my friend Rev. Dan Damon. I play with Dan a few times a year at his church, First United Methodist Church in Point Richmond.

Dan is a jazz pianist and songwriter as well as a pastor. He will lead the band, which will also include Randy Odell on drums and Lincoln Adler on saxes. Singer Sheilani Alix will join us as well. The concert will celebrate his "Traveler Unknown" CD release.

Facebook Links
The band's page
Kurt Ribak Trio / Quartet

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Wednesday, March 24, 6:00 to 9:00 PM - and the FOURTH Wednesday of every month
Kurt Ribak Trio - Original jazz
Cato's Ale House
http://www.mrcato.com/
3891 Piedmont Ave., Oakland, CA
510-655-3349
all ages, no cover

We play the FOURTH Wednesday of every month. Cato's is a beer and wine place with a lot of good bar grub as well. Their beer selection is excellent, and you can bring your kids if you wish. Michael Hatfield is on vibes plus Robin Lewis on guitar.

Sunday, March 28, 7:15 PM to 10:30 PM - and the last Sunday of every month
Kurt Ribak Quartet - Original Jazz
The Riptide
http://www.riptidesf.com
3639 Taraval @ 47th Ave. - near the Great Highway
San Francisco, CA 94116
No Cover, 21 and over

Riptide sign

The Riptide is a way cool bar in the outer Sunset - in fact, it's almost at the Pacific Ocean. It's a great little neighborhood bar co-owned by Les James, the drummer for one of my favorite country bands, Red Meat. There is a hipster element, despite the location, and there is a very friendly neighborhood bar vibe despite the hipster element. Best of both worlds, really.

This is a good, old-fashioned bar. Not a bistro, not a coffeehouse with a liquor license, but a bar. They book a lot of good music there, but it's a comfy, slightly funky place. They have good cheap drinks, folks are friendly, there's no cover, and it's an easy place to hang out - how can you lose?

The lineup is TBA.

Kurt Ribak Trio Merchandise

CD Purchases -
You can buy the Kurt Ribak Trio CDs:
>online at CDBaby or by the download there, on iTunes, emusic.com, and all the other usual online sources
>at The Groove Yard in Oakland at 5555 Claremont in Oakland,
>at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, CA.
>and at Musicians Union Local 6.

Buy the CD online - or buy downloads!

East Bay Express Review:
There was a review of the CD in the "Local Licks" column of the East Bay Express.

NEW CD project by Sheilani Alix
If you've seen us playing in the last few years you've almost certainly seen vocalist Sheilani Alix with us at some point. Sheilani sang "People Get Ready" at our Yoshi's SF date last June 30, and she made quite an impression.

Sheilani is recording her debut CD, and the backing musicians are all ones that regularly appear in the Kurt Ribak Trio and Kurt Ribak Quartet. Matt Willis will be featured on drums, Greg Sankovich on keyboards, Lincoln Adler on saxes, and Kurt on bass. Guitarist Tim Fox will also appear on some tracks. This should be good - Sheilani is recording at the legendary Fantasy Records in Berkeley.

CD sales in Japan
Disk Union licensed the track "Prima," from the "more" CD by the Kurt Ribak Trio. We are included in the "Jazz Bar 2008" recording, a compilation of recent jazz recordings. The track "Pseudoafrocubanismo" from our debut CD ("Kurt Ribak Trio" - three fingers cover) was included in "Jazz Bar 2007," which has been selling well in Japan.

Our newest CD, "gone" has been selling especially well in Japan.

Kurt Ribak Trio played Yoshi's San Francisco June 30, 2009 - and we're coming to Yoshi's Oakland Monday, July 19, 2010

Thanks to everybody who came out to the show. There was a great turnout - Yoshi's was very impressed with the ticket sales, and you were all a wonderful audience. We were touched, grateful, and humbled by the turnout. Thank you very much.

Tuesday, June 30 was one of the high points in my life.

Here are some photos from that night:
Kurt announcing Lorna K singing, Kurt in background

all photos above: Mark Coggins

photo: Geri Tablit

"One of the perks of being an unemployed musician is that you get to play much less bad music." - Jack Daney

STOLEN GEAR ALERT

Somebody stole my SWR bass amp, a Manhasset music stand, a silver metal box with CDs and cords in it, and a bag with my charts sometime the morning of 2/25/09 in Berkeley, CA. If you see a SWR Baby Blue II combo bass amp, Serial Number BB0301 1181, please let me know! I recovered the charts - the rest is still missing.

Hire us!

Kurt Ribak, individually, and the Kurt Ribak Trio collectively are available for other gigs. Leads for other gigs for the trio or for me as a sideman will be most welcome. Feel free to call or e-mail.

Quotes about Kurt - > "Hugging Kurt is a like a big bear with no hair" - Monica, age 5, to her father

Kurt as a sideman - aka - Other People's Music

Sheilani Alix
Sheilani Alix often appears with us, and she often hires me and Greg Sankovich to back her. She does a killer version of the Curtis Mayfield song "People Get Ready." Sheila will be recording her debut CD in a month or so - stay tuned for this - it should be really good. Expect to hear Greg Sankovich, Lincoln Adler, Matt Wills, and Tim Fox on this project.
You can see Sheila performing the song with us at The Riptide in this video.

Here are some CDs I played on -

Lorna K
I have played with Lorna K for over a decade. She has a new CD out entitled "Lorna K and the Dunes." The recording features her take on songs by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys as well as some radical reinterpretations of songs including Duke Ellington's "What Am I Here For."

Lorna appeared at The Plush Room in the York Hotel in San Francisco December 2007 in one of its final events. She sold out the room! The instrumentalists on the recording and on the Plush Room date were Greg Sankovich on piano and Hammond Organ, Kurt Ribak on upright bass, Tom Griesser on clarinet and saxophone, and Bryan Bowman on drums.

Alex Walsh's CD "Light Another Candle"is pop - a lot of it sounds like Mott the Hoople meets the Replacements to me. This was recorded in 2003. I play electric bass and upright on it.

Brian Schindele's CD The Moral is original straightahead jazz. I like it - the title tune kicks off the CD with some great drumming. This CD features Brian, drummer Tim Vaughan, Sheldon Brown on tenor sax, Tom Griesser playing sax on one track, Dave Scott on trumpet, cornet, and flugelhorn, Larry Leight on trombone, and Connie Champagne as featured guest vocalist on a ballad track.

I regularly played with Stephen Bigger at Moraga Valley Presbyterian Church, where he was music director. "Lights on the Horizon" is a CD of his contemporary Christian songwriting. Stephen sings lead on a number of the tunes, but he also features Amy Beth Nickelson and Katie O'Gorman, two very talented young members of the congregation at Moraga Valley.

You can download the Kurt Ribak Trio recordings at iTunes and emusic.com, as well as elsewhere. We've been getting some attention at emusic - the recording is rated four out of five stars. You can do a trial membership for cheap, and recordings are way cheaper to download at emusic than with iTunes. The new recording is available for sale at iTunes, emusic, and elsewhere.

Live downloads
You can go to BayTaper.com or http://mefeedia.com/feeds/21779/ to download our July 2, 2006 show at the Fillmore Jazz Festival. There are also some excellent photos there. The show is rated five stars out of five.

Myspace site
You can also go to our Myspace page. The one for the Kurt Ribak Trio has songs up on the site and gig listings. There is also a Kurt Ribak Myspace site that is specifically for Kurt and includes his personal blog. Add us to your friend list!

T-shirts
We have a few Kurt Ribak Trio t-shirts remaining. These are a seven-color print on Hanes Beefy-T shirts, so these are a quality product. These echo the artwork of the first CD. They are black, with the three-colored hand on the front and the words "Kurt Ribak Trio" on the back. They come in women's sizes and cut from small to L and men's from small to medium. e-mail me at: kurt@ribak.com if you would like to buy a shirt, or catch up with me at a gig. Check them out here. Drummer Tim Solook and his wife Lisa are modeling them at our Fillmore Jazz Festival gig.

Bay Area Jazz Resources

Groove Yard Record Store and Newsletter
- Rick Ballard operates the Groove Yard at 5555 Claremont in Oakland. It's between the Rockridge and Temescal districts. It's a great jazz record store for used vinyl and new and used CDs by local as well as national and international artists. Rick has an e-mail newsletter. E-mail him at groove2@earthlink.net and request to be added and be up on the concerts, CDs, etc.

KCSM - FM Radio and Jazz Datebook
You can always check out who's playing in the Bay Area with KCSM-FM's Jazz Datebook.

You can listen to KCSM-FM at 91.1 FM. They are 24 hours jazz, no commercials. They are a huge contributor to the vitality of the Bay Area jazz scene. You can listen online at http://www.kcsm.org/jazz91/listen.php

>We're like, all up in literature and stuff

Candy from Strangers

Mark Coggins is the author of the August Riordan series of mystery novels. The August Riordan character is a wise-cracking tough guy PI who is also a jazz bassist.

I got to know Coggins a while ago and he asked if he could use some of my music for a KQED podcast of "Candy from Strangers", the third book in the August Riordan series. William P. Arney of the Noir City Film Festival reads the first chapter with my music accompanying the story - specifically, "Prelude to a B Movie" and "Pseudoafrocubanismo," which appeared on the Kurt Ribak Trio debut CD.

The podcast is permanently at the following location: http://www.kqed.org/arts/writersblock/episode.jsp?id=13480

iTunes users can access The Writers' Block via the following URL: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=82023860

Pulp Fiction
Also check out the Word for Word Theater Company performance of "Angel Face". This is a stage setting of a Cornell Woolrich story that originally appeared in the classic pulp magazine Black Mask. Black Mask featured many of the best noir writers including Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

The Writers' Block is also distributed through NPR here: http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=5593982

To go directly to the audio, use either of these:
stream: http://www.kqed.org/.stream/real/topics/arts/writers-block/0701-coggins-bloc k.rm.ram or
download: http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/151/510076/7092336/ KQED_7092336.mp3

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