Jazz Articles about Mike Rinta

About Mike Rinta

Album Review

Have Mercy!--Sean McDonald's 2025 debut album on the Little Village Foundation label--introduces a young artist whose greatest strength may be his ability to absorb blues, soul and early rock 'n' roll traditions without sounding bound by them. The 24-year-old singer, guitarist and songwriter understands these forms deeply enough to make them his own. The album's influences are often easy to spot. “My Soul" carries the buoyant feel of Elvis Presley's “All Shook Up," complete with “uh-ah-huh" harmony ...

Album Review

Taj Mahal: Savoy

by Steve Yip
June 10, 2023

Folk/blues practitioner Taj Mahal's Savoy is to be savored. As one of the custodians of the blues, Mahal has long been a legend in his own time. This collection traverses a cultural-musical continuum in an indispensable residency in the annals of Black American music. The namesake of this album--the Savoy on Lenox Avenue in Harlem--was known as The World's Finest Ballroom and Home Of Happy Feet. In the pre-Civil Rights era, the North claimed formal equality, but segregation ...

Album Review

Taj Mahal: Savoy

by Dave Linn
May 3, 2023

Savoy, from Taj Mahal, is the latest entrant in the crowded field of pop music artists trying their hand at the fertile songbook of old big-band, swing-era standards. Unlike most, Mahal's roots show he's well suited to the task. He was born in Harlem in 1942. He grew up in a musical family, and his parents were both involved in the arts. His father was a jazz pianist and arranger, working with Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Fletcher Henderson among ...

Album Review

Ray Obiedo: Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2

Read "Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
September 30, 2021

Sometimes it is difficult to banish the words of Ecclesiastes from your mind when listening to a recording: “There is no new thing under the Sun." While that may be true of music in particular--one builds on the past, just as in other fields--it is no good reason for not listening or for simple indifference. Gerald Wilson's “Viva Tirado" has been around since the 1970s, and Wilson himself has been quoted as being once surprised by hearing the El Chicano ...

Album Review

Ray Obiedo: Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2

Read "Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
September 24, 2021

There is a train of thought which proposes that the beginnings of the modern Latin jazz movement originated with the co-mingling of mambo and bebop. Although there is no empirical evidence to support this proposition, the uptake of the Latin style by boppers such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Herbie Mann gives some credence to the notion. The music presented by guitarist Ray Obiedo in Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2, while grounded in the Latin jazz construct, is delivered ...

Album Review

Pacific Mambo Orchestra: The III Side

Read "The III Side" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 12, 2020

Pacific Mambo Orchestra—PMO, for short—has a lot to celebrate. With the calendar turning to 2020, this Grammy-winning Latin big band celebrated its 10th anniversary and the early January release of this potent third album. Inviting special guests, strings and part-time personnel to the party, PMO uses this opportunity to craft a spicy stew seasoned with Mambo, Timba, Bolero, bop, classical associations and a whole lot more. With an excess of heat and rhythmic vivacity in its soul, ...