Kurt Ribak

“Joyous,” “grooving,” “bluesy,” “sophisticated,” and “masterful” could all be accurately use to describe bassist and composer Kurt Ribak’s music, but perhaps an assessment is best left to the man himself, who calls his rollicking mix of bebop sophistication and body-moving grooves “Charles Mingus meets The Meters.” In a change of pace, Ribak presents an evening devoted to simmering Latin jazz with a band of the Bay Area’s best.

A Berkeley native, Ribak parlayed his formative musical experiences as a cellist and member of the San Francisco Boys Chorus into a passion for the bass, studying at Cal Berkeley and Boston’s Berklee College of Music before returning to the East Bay and establishing a well-deserved reputation as one of the most respected creative forces on the scene.