Brooklyn musical legend Mino Cinélu releases new track

September 3, 2020 Michael Tobman

Musician and longtime Carroll Gardens resident Mino Cinélu. Photo: Michael Tobman

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Legend would be an understatement when describing longtime Carroll Gardens resident Mino Cinélu. On the release of his new album, a duo effort with famed jazz trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær, The Brooklyn Eagle is pleased to share the title track video “SulaMadiana.”

Sit in a café most anywhere in the world, and more likely than not a record or song that Mino Cinélu performed on will be playing. Sit with Mino in a café or club or bar, also most anywhere in the world, and you’ll hear about that night’s show or what he’s thinking about for a tour or production later that month. Sit anywhere with someone who knows Mino, and you’ll hear about what a wonderful person he is. Or you can find him riding around Brooklyn on his Vespa.

Miles Davis was right when he said, “With Mino, any music swings.”

Sting, Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Tracy Chapman, Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder, Lou Reed, Kate Bush, Charles Aznavour, Tori Amos, Vicente Amigo, Dizzy Gillespie, Pat Metheny, Branford Marsalis, Pino Daniele, Earth, Wind & Fire, Salif Keita, and Miles Davis — a small selection of the international jazz, world and pop stars that Mino has worked with since the late ’70s.

All of which is to say that Mino draws on a legacy of sound and space that inform his work while staying current and modern.

Whether playing percussion, drums, guitar, keyboards or singing, Mino brings his infectious personality full of warmth and joie de vivre, coupled with decades of intense study in a wide variety of international styles — from the streets of Paris to Dakar, from the Mississippi Delta to Japan, and from the Caribbean to the Middle East. He’s equally comfortable being the consummate accompanist as he is being the center of attention, and can command an extensive ensemble as well as perform his own breathtaking one-man show. Or as Kate Bush described him — “A magic of percussion, always there with a big smile.”