Manteca is a Juno Award winning pan cultural artists collective founded in Toronto in 1979 of nine musicians composed from numerous ethnic, musical and geographic directions. The group has recorded thirteen records and toured the world performing at prestigious jazz and cultural festivals from Los Angeles to Stockholm. Jazz Times cited the band as “one of contemporary music’s most accomplished and original artists.” Jazz Critic Mark Miller said Manteca is "a friendly, sensuously-attractive place to visit – a musical utopia…it is evocative, even ethereal and yet it can also have great physical presence, it is wildly spirited and yet remarkably controlled. Everything is in balance, utopian indeed.” Indeed the a recent review from the Mid Western Record sums up the band’s directions in 2021 perfectly: "So here's some funky futurists that have been at it 41 years with their view of world jazz that seems limitless. Collecting moves from the past and the future and fusing them into their own version of fusion, this is easily a nu take on jazz as party music--the way the cats in long ago Nawlins originally envisioned it. Space station party music done right.” Houston, we have no problem.