Career
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Gibbs attended Medgar Evers College and the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. After attending and graduating from the Berklee College of Music, Gibbs first came to public notice as a member of the group Defunkt which was a mainstay of the early 1980s downtown New York scene. Throughout most of the 1980s, he played in drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society alongside guitarist Vernon Reid, as well as playing with guitarist Sonny Sharrock and saxophonist John Zorn. Additionally with Jackson and guitarist Bill Frisell he was also a member of the group Power Tools. Gibbs co-led the band Eye and I and he is an original member of the Black Rock Coalition.
He was a member of the avantmetal Rollins Band from 1993 to about 1998, and again in 2006 when the group briefly reformed. As a member of the Rollins Band he was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1995. Gibbs has also recorded with hip-hop artists Dead Prez, Brazilian artists Caetano Veloso and Marisa Monte, Latin jazz artist Eddie Palmieri, Nigerian artist Femi Kuti, and guitarist Marc Ribot. He has also produced albums by guitarist/singer Arto Lindsay and turntablist DJ Logic.
Gibbs formed the Punk-Funk All-Stars with James Blood Ulmer, Defunkt leader Joseph Bowie, Vernon Reid and Ronald Shannon Jackson. He co-leads the band Harriet Tubman with guitarist Brandon Ross and drummer JT Lewis. His other current projects include Melvin Runs the Hoodoo Down with guitarist Pete Cosey and keyboard player John Medeski, the JFM Trio featuring guitarist Jeff Parker and percussionist Francisco Mora, and the Geechee Seminoles, a duo featuring Gibbs and drummer/hand-body percussionist/dancer David Pleasant.
Ancients Speak, the first album by Melvin Gibbs' Elevated Entity, was released on March 17, 2009, by Livewired Music.
In 2009, he joined the group "SociaLybrium", alongside Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee keyboard player Bernie Worrell and long time Parliament-Funkadelic guitarist and musical director DeWayne "Blackbyrd" McKnight as well as J.T. Lewis on drums. The group's album, For You/For Us/For All was released by Livewired Music in December 2009.
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