Career
He plays the electric cello, and his style is a mixture of rock, jazz, avant-garde, folk and classical influences. He emerged with the downtown New York jazz scene of the 1980s and is strongly associated with its post-modern tendencies. Roberts also recorded three discs with the Arcado String Trio, an improvisational chamber group featuring Mark Feldman, violin, and Mark Dresser, double bass.
In the early 1990s Roberts left Frisell"s group and stopped touring widely.
He continued to release recordings, if sporadically, including with the progressive folk group Ti Ti Chickapea. In 2008 he was again touring and performing regularly, releasing Green (with Jim Black and Marc Ducret) on Winter & Winter, Stefan F. Winters subsequent label to JMT. In December 2011, Winter and Winter released Roberts" Everything Is Alive, as well as re-releasing his entire JMT catalogue.