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Melvin Rhyne

Melvin Rhyne was born in Indianapolis in 1936 and started playing the piano shortly thereafter. At 19 years old, Rhyne started playing piano with then-unknown tenor saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk but quickly switched over to the instrument that would make him famous: the Hammond B3 organ. Rhyne's piano skills translated to the organ fluently and before long he was backing famous blues players like B.B. King and T-Bone Walker. In 1959 when he was asked to join fellow Indianapolis musician Wes Montgomery's newly formed trio.

Rhyne then moved to Wisconsin and largely kept to himself for the next two decades. In 1991, however, Rhyne returned to the jazz scene, playing on Herb Ellis' album Roll Call, Brian Lynch's At the Main Event, and his own comeback The Legend. Rhyne continued to be prolific in the years to come, releasing eight more solo albums on the Criss Cross jazz label.

In 2008 Rhyne teamed up with fellow Indianapolis jazz musician Rob Dixon to form the Dixon-Rhyne Project, a boundary-pushing jazz quartet that also includes Chicago guitarist Fareed Haque and drummer Kenny Phelps. The quartet released the album Reinvention in 2008 on Indianapolis jazz label Owl Studios. Rhyne's later career trio included drummer Kenny Washington and guitarist Peter Bernstein in the same organ, guitar, drum formation of the original Wes Montgomery Trio.

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5
Album Review

Melvin Rhyne: Boss Organ

Read "Boss Organ" reviewed by Chris May


Originally released on CD on the Criss Cross label in 1993, Hammond B3 organist Melvin Rhyne's Boss Organ is issued here for the first time on vinyl. Spanish archive label Elemental, under license from Criss Cross, has repackaged it as a double LP in a gatefold sleeve on 180-gram audiophile vinyl. It is a blinder. Not because Rhyne deals in surging, heavily amped block chords, a la Jimmy Smith, but because his style is utterly unlike that, ...

91
Album Review

Melvin Rhyne: Kojo

Read "Kojo" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan


Taking advantage of the cyclical nature of fads and stylistic “ins" and “outs", Melvin Rhyne is lucky to be part of the current renaissance movement involving the classic sound of the Hammond B-3 organ and the type of funky fare that was prosperous and bountiful during the ‘60s. Of course, Rhyne was around during the heydays as a member of Wes Montgomery’s touring trio. Now this Milwaukee resident has caught the other side of the upswing with a renewed interest ...

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Obituary

Melvin Rhyne (1936-2013)

Melvin Rhyne (1936-2013)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Organist Melvin Rhyne—who died of lung cancer on March 5 at age 76 in his hometown of Indianapolis—is perhaps best known for the four spectacular Riverside albums he recorded with Wes Montgomery between 1960 and 1963. Thanks to Resonance Records, we also have recordings with Rhyne and Montgomery from Indianapolis circa 1957 or '58—just before producer Orrin Keepnews lured Montgomery to Riverside and the road. [Photo above by Mark Sheldon] Upon a relisten to the Riverside material, it's hard to ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Boss Organ

Elemental Music
2022

buy

Kojo

Criss Cross
1999

buy

Organ-izing

Jazzland Recordings
1960

buy

Videos

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