Melvin Gibbs

Grammy-nominated composer / producer / bassist Melvin Gibbs has a beyond-diverse background in jazz, rock, punk, and freeform experimentalism — anchored by mentors including Ornette Coleman and Gil Evans, encompassing work with Arto Lindsay, Dead Prez, and Sonny Sharrock, stints in Defunkt and the Rollins Band, and collaborations in ensembles including Power Tools alongside Bill Frisell and Ronald Shannon Jackson and the cooperative Harriet Tubman. Within the last few years, Gibbs released solo works on Editions Mego and Northern Spy, and performed in collaboration with Marshall Allen, Elliott Sharp, Don McKenzie (as Bootstrappers), Wadada Leo Smith, and with theoretical physicist Dr. Stephon Alexander (as God Particle). He recently finished his first book, titled How Black Music Took Over The World, which will be published by Basic Books next year. Gibbs plays bass in the band Body Meπa, whose two albums to date were released by Hausu Mountain. Hausu Mountain proudly presents Melvin Gibbs’s Amasia: Anamibia Sessions 2. The avant-jazz odyssey finds him operating in the many-tendriled roles of composer, arranger, collagist, performer, and bandleader — all while merging together recordings that span two decades, featuring an interdisciplinary array of collaborators, into a composite whose overflowing amalgam of ideas transcend genre and categorization.