Mino 4 Miles

Famed percussionist and vocalist Mino Cinelu has assembled an exclusive all-star group to perform his own original compositions and to celebrate Miles Davis’s Centennial. Cinelu performed on Davis’s seminal albums We Want Miles (1982), Star People (1983), and Decoy (1984) and toured extensively with him.  This group was assembled for this Presidio Theatre performance and features SFJAZZ Collective trumpeter Michael Rodriguez, MONK’estra leader and Grammy-winning pianist John Beasley, former SFJAZZ Collective bassist Matt Penman, and the current Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra drummer and former SFJAZZ Collective member Obed Calvaire. 

“With Mino, any music swings.” – Miles Davis
“Mino can make anybody dance.” – Sting
“A magic of percussion, always there with a big smile.” – Kate Bush
“In many ways, he may be the best percussionist we’ve had so far.” – Joe Zawinul, Weather Report

Legend is an understatement. Sit with master-of-all-trades Mino Cinélu in any café and more likely than not, a record will come on that he’s played on. Sting, Miles Davis, Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder, Lou Reed, Vicente Amigo, Dizzy Gillespie, Pat Metheny, Kate Bush, Branford Marsalis, Pino Daniele and Salif Keita are just a tiny selection of the international pop, World, and jazz stars that Mino has worked with since the late 70’s.

Whether playing percussion, drums, guitar, keyboards, or singing, Mino brings his signature infectious personality full of warmth and joie de vivre, coupled with decades of intense study in a wide variety of styles from around the world — from the streets of Paris, Dakar, to the Mississippi delta, Japan, to the island of Martinique. He’s equally comfortable being the consummate accompanist as being the center of attention, and can command an extensive ensemble as well as performing his own breathtaking one-man-band show.

Born in Paris to a French mother and a father from Martinique, Mino mainly taught himself, first on guitar and bass, then drums and percussion. Mino has released four albums under his own name, appeared on countless records as a composer, co-leader, guest or sideman. Cinélu has scored the music for several films, documentaries and TV commercials. For “La Californie”, Mino was nominated as one of the 10 best film composer at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Mino is considered by many, as one of the greatest and most innovative
percussionist worldwide.

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