Mindi Abair : Doing Pretty Damn Good For A Girl
Grammy Nominated Mindi Abair is one of the most recognized saxophonists in the US. She has been seen on American Idol, as well as joining Aerosmith and Duran Duran on their US tours. No one since Junior Walker has brought saxophone & vocals in one package to the forefront of modern music, with a raucous tone and dynamic stage presence. Innocent Words sat down with Abair in Seattle on the opening night of her 2018 tour in support of her new album, Mindi Abair and The Boneshakers "The East West Sessions,” to talk about the new band and new direction for this powerhouse performer.
RB: Let’s do some back story. Your home town is St Petersburg Florida. How does a girl from Florida become a smooth jazz rock and soul saxophone icon?
Mindi Abair: I know St Petersburg is not the mecca of music. My father was in a blue-eyed soul band when I was born, and he took me on the road. We didn’t have house until I was four or five. My daddy played sax and B3, I grew up watching him fronting a band with a sax. It all made sense to me, and no one told me it was odd for a girl to play sax. My grandmother was an opera singer also. Dad went on to be a tour manager and put together bands. I was around rock n roll my whole life. You know if your dad is firefighter you may want to grow up to be one too. I learned to play sax in the school band.
RB: You are product of public school band, that is great!
Mindi Abair: Yeah, my dad didn’t want to be my teacher. I was watching MTV and rock and pop music videos. Remember Tina turner’s sax player in the 80’s, he was awesome, and Clarence Clemens’s, he was a god, he came from the Blues but was in a Rock band. You had Junior Walker playing the sax solo on ‘Urgent’ by Foreigner. I didn’t come up listening to Jazz. My first week of collage people asked me who is your favorite sax player, I didn’t know.
RB: Of course, you have to pick one, Coltrane or Cannonball.
Mindi Abair: I didn’t know who John Coltrane or Miles Davis was. I grew up on Pop and Rock N Roll
RB: You are a Berkley grad and then went to LA?
Mindi Abair: I realized the first year of local college that is was all jazz and I was not that girl. I heard Berkley was the place to go where you could play anything, and it was acceptable. Getting to go there was great for a Floridian. My sax teacher Joe Viola would say to me every week, “do your own band, go be you, there’s already a Coltrane and David Sanborn, you go be you.” I moved to L.A and played anywhere I could. On the street in Santa Monica or strolling thru hotel lobbies. I didn’t want to say, “do you want fries with that.” Bobby Lyle hired me off the street. He heard me and asked me to go on the road. He and the band of veteran musicians who showed me the ropes. I then got gigs with Jonathan Butler, Tina Maria, Backstreet Boys, Mandi Moore and the reunion of Durán Duran. So many things were happening that I just fell into.
RB: A bunch of work and certainly not jazz.
Mindi Abair: Yeah, am I glad all that happened. It created a depth of style for me, and it was the best thing in the world, because I learned how to immerse myself in all those different kinds of music and it made me better.
RB: That answers my question about why you are moving from smooth Jazz genre to more Blues and Rock, which is kind of a backwards move. most players get mellow as they get older and your getting heavier.
RB: There was a point when I realized that in all my off time I was hanging out with my Rocker friends. When I wasn’t tour with my band I was asked to play with Aerosmith and Max Weinberg, it was all Blues, Rock and Soul. But those people didn’t come to my world, I went to theirs. My two worlds didn’t intersect. I had to figure out how to get it all together. I talked to joe Perry and asked him to play on a track. It was the Jazziest thing he’s ever done, but the most Rock thing I ever did. If your standing next to Joe Perry you better buck up and play something cool, he pushes you. Another thing happened with Greg Allman; I was on a show with him and asked if he would write a song with me, he was so magical. I ended up staying three days at his house, with the girlfriend and the drug dealer, what a scene. We recorded at a little studio behind a pharmacy in Savanah, it was magic. Other people who helped me, Max Weinberg, Trombone Shorty and Booker T Jones, he is so inspiring. They all played on my ‘Wild Heart’ album and helped me combine my worlds.
RB: We are back at the scene of the crime of the first Boneshakers album, ‘Live In Seattle.’
Mindi Abair: Yes, the only reason I didn’t call it “live at Jazz Alley,’ was I did not want to people think it was a Jazz record. It’s not, it is all Blues and Rock and Funk. When I first moved to L.A I got hired to play in a Rock band, I showed up and the first night and I watched the guitarist, it was Randy Jacobs, from the Bone Shakers, during his guitar solo he did a back flip into the audience. (gasp)
RB: Why isn’t he on the cover of Guitar Player magazine?
Mindi Abair: Exactly! I thought “I need to stay in touch with this guy.” Sure, enough we’ve had a lifelong friendship. I loved his band the Bone Shakers. Cut to a 2015 and half of my band are playing with them and I had gotten Randy to play with me because I need more edge. both of our bands were on the bill at New Port Jazz Fest and I said “hey I am coming to sit in with you guys” half way thru the set we were on fire at this high-pitched level. It was so fun. We talked after I said, “this is how it is supposed to be, let’s do that every night, this is why we play music.” We decided to join forces, let’s be Joan Jet and the Black Hearts or Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers. We rehearsed a couple days and did our first show here in Seattle. I had done a show here for valentines for a dozen years. Its was a tried and true place, but I brought in a new off the chain rocking band. I thought this could go great or go poorly. We did a cover of Summertime, the Gershwin standard, but we did it ala Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Manic Depression,’ what could go wrong? We recorded it. my friend Dave Dysart was up here. I said, “just set up behind the curtain, so I can have a recording of this for when I am 80 and I can just sit and listen.”
RB: Great way to start without the pressure of the studio red light. Your new studio album also has that Live feel. Kevin Shirly is known for producing albums live off the floor is that why you choose to work with him?
Mindi Abair: I didn’t know that about him. It would have scarred me more if I did, Oh my god. What I did know is that I love the records he produces and the freeness of them. they don’t feel produced, it feels like it just happened I feel the air in the room and the people moving around, I feel like I am there ether is a palpable energy. You can have amazing musicians who are on fire on stage and you put them in a studio and it just shuts down. Or you can kill it in a studio and lit sounds like it is in a box.
RB: I love live albums, some of my favorites.
Mindi Abair: Exactly, like Allman Brothers Live, stop it. I thought Kevin was our guy, and I didn’t know if it was going to happen. I figured every record he makes sounds like that but better. I met with him and talked about the band and he just seemed to get it. He liked our stuff, he said I know where your coming from and what to do. We were a band that was only a live band and didn’t have a studio album. I thought we had to shape the sound of the band with our first studio record. I was careful with the material I wrote over fifty songs, which I think made Kevin crazy. It was fun to go thru them together and pick out the songs, and how it shows the personality of the players.
We weren’t trying to make any particular kind of record. we were going off pure adrenalin. We just thought “hey what do we want to play every night?’ and wrote that as a new record. It’s pretty rock n roll I know. A few of the blues stations are saying “oh my this is pretty rock.” Its real because you need to rock out.
RB: Will this album be a great opportunity to cross over and gather new fans?
Mindi Abair: Yeah, I hope so. It’s been fun to see different people listening to us. I am used to being on the jazz charts, but now I am neck and neck with Greg Allman and Walter trout and Tedeschi Trucks, this is so Uber Cool!
RB: You should be playing shows with them.
Mindi Abair: I’m going to haunt them until they let us play.
RB: Let’s talk about the about album which has a theme of the power of positivity and love.
Mindi Abair: That hits home for me. Writing for this record was a real time for me of feeling empowered. That term is used often as a woman thing, but it was an overall thing. I think I found the guys to play with and we all found a home with this band. The drummer is from my home town and Randy and I have known each other for twenty plus years. Rod for 17 years. That feeling of comfort and empowerment you get from that is just great and has to seep into the writing. You’ve found this place musically that you fit and it all comes together.
RB: The value of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts kind of thing
Mindi Abair: Yes, we are greater together like all great bands. The songs reflect that, like “I Had to Learn the Hard Way.’ yes, it’s tough but if it’s with these guys its all good. “Vinyl’ was about singing about all the great music from Nashville and Memphis and Elvis that I grew up on.
RB: Let’s talk about ‘Pretty Good for a Girl.’ You named your label and built a web site after the song.
Mindi Abair: ‘Pretty Good For A Girl,’ is a song grew out of Randy and I going back and forth on Blues song ideas. It is autobiographical, tongue in cheek look at this industry and being a woman in the biz. He didn’t want to do a blues but it’s totally a Blues.
RB: Totally, it is a down and dirty, bump and grind 12 bar Blues
Mindi Abair: I said, “Randy it’s a Blues let it be,” once he goes into the deep Blues it feels so good, you gotta do it. that song was written as a bit of jab but has grown into an anthem of “hey, don’t you wish you were a girl.”
RB: It was recorded a year ago right after the women’s marches and before the #me-too movement. It has become important. Have you felt an impact?
Mindi Abair: Hell yeah!
RB: Have you had your own “me too “moments in the industry?
Mindi Abair: I don’t know a woman who hasn’t. There is a lot of work to be done. There is a lot that could change for the better. I have to say I am a pretty strong personality, so I didn’t get caught up in stuff like. I would just call up management and say, “I just said no to your artist, so if your going to fire me do it now.” The fact t that you have to deal with it at all, is a shame. I love that these movements are going on and giving women a voice to talk about what has been going on a long time, it’s hard to say it. It is really important to have those conversations and can change things and can make the world better. its an exciting time for women, and men. And adjustment, a global adjustment. Not over yet. I happy to a part of it. I was never one to stand on the sidelines and just complain, that is not my style. I’d much rather be on the front lines and make a difference. the song became bigger, it’s become a total call to action a great fun empowering song. I thought what can I do that is more than the song. I built a web site that features cool girls, whether it be Oprah, who is the coolest or my friend who has her own punk bad or someone who their own business, whoever inspires me. If they inspire me, hopefully they will inspire others. It is fun to be on that path and have it as a great song to sing every night.
RB: You grabbed a whole new fan base with one song.
Mindi Abair: It’s not a shrinking violet song for sure. Then Joe Bonamassa comes in and plays on it. Oh, I don’t have the words! Kevin Shirly asked me if I wanted Joe to play on a track, I thought for a second “yeah of course.” He is amazing, that guy puts out more records than anyone I’ve ever seen. I thought he was to busy and Kevin said, “no he’s got a couple night’s off and wants to play.” I’m thinking to myself “wow if I was him I’d take a couple days off.” He came in and just killed it. A lot of guys will say I’ll come in and do a solo, and be out the door or say, “send me the track,” but Joe came to the studio that day and tracked the whole song with us he was there and a part of all of it, geeking out over guitar parts with Randy, totally what he talks about on Nerd Ville. And it was transcendent
RB: Ok let talk Saxophones. I have a couple geek out sax questions.
Mindi Abair: Oh, I love it.
RB: Well guitar players always geek out about gear and amps, blah blah.
Mindi Abair: Sax players can be geeky, so fire away
RB: Tell me about your custom signature mouthpiece.
Mindi Abair: Well you always want to beat what you’ve got. To get a bigger badder sound, and searching for the next best thing, how could it be more what I am envisioning. I met Theo Wanne, who lives up in Bellingham, we talked about mouthpieces, I told him I wanted to try my hand at creating my own mouth piece and getting “my Sound,” making it easier to play and less work to get a huge resonant sound. A lot of mouth pieces for sax are made to be for jazz. your looking to be Charlie Parker and. there is lot of classical and jazz mouth pieces but not a lot of rock n roll and soul ones. You can make one that makes it easy to be big and beefy and fun. That was my idea. He liked it. We would get together and work on it here and there on tour. We’d be back stage working with files adjusting it in minute detail we spent a few years honing all the aspects of what I thought would be the perfect mouthpiece. We were almost done, and my saxophone got stolen. My horn, mouthpiece, and set up gone. I didn’t play a stock piece at the time. It was all custom. So, there was no way I could have re-done it. everything was gone. Total shot in the stomach. I called up Theo and said, “the piece we’ve been working that was gonna be the future, its gotta happen now,” he came to the hotel I was in on the road and we got a conference room and laid out all the tools and proto types on a table. I Played them all and made adjustments. It was all rubber and tape it a was rough. He went home and made one, which is on my horn right there.
RB: Wow! so that is model 001
Mindi Abair: Yes, the original. It is seamless. We put it out as the Theo Wanne-Abair custom. It is something that for me as a nerdy saxophonist who spent hours in a practice room as a kid and college student and my whole life since. It just fun to have something I helped create and is what I want to feel and helps me be a better me.
RB: A great feeling that others will play on something you created, and they will then create their own music.
Mindi Abair: It cool. Its history. People have sent photos of them playing the Mindi Abair mouthpiece. It wild. When I got to hear other people play it, it was wild. They would play a couple notes and then their eyes would get big like woah! Fun to others get the same jolt out of it.
RB: Other geeky question. Reeds. Natural or plastic?
Mindi Abair: I am natural. There are some plastic reeds that are good, but I play D’Addario med soft reeds. The reason anyone would want synthetic is because natural ones are fallible, and you get into different environments and they respond different. Your reed is different every night and different in every city, they get tired out. I know guys that travel with hundreds of reeds. I travel with 50 or 60 reeds because 49 of those are gonna suck. I’ve got sandpaper and files and stuff to fix them up in my case, so I can get that beefiness out of synthetics. Wood all the way
RB: Ok so here you are a band leader and vocalist, but you are also in the band as an instrumentalist. Most women in the jazz and blues world are in front of the band just as vocalists. Do you feel more connected with the guys as an instrumentalist?
Mindi Abair: I totally get it, great question. I think there is a mutual respect being a musician and being a part of the machine. I never thought twice about because I grew up a working-class musician. Doing the gig in the Chinese restaurant or whatever to pay the rent. I was playing in all kinds of cray places, playing everything from rock to salsa and jazz, to be able to do what I do. I think there is mutual respect with the guys in the band that you’ll work as hard as they do. If I don’t care enough to be in the trenches with them why should they? Being that person instead of the diva vocalist.
In college I never let people know I could sing because of that. I did work on recordings without my name on it. I wanted to be a saxophonist and song writer. I didn’t want that stigma. The musicians in college looked down on the girls who were just singers because they didn’t know the chords changes and the structure. I was in the band, I wanted that knowledge, and came at it from that point of view. I finally started to tell people I sing, and it worked out ok.
RB: Alright we better head to the sound check
Mindi Abair: Yeah! We get to make some noise!
(originally published at Innocent Words, April 2018)
Rick J Bowen © 2020