Ep 081 – Mindi Abair; Defining her own niche in the saxophone and music world

Author, businesswoman, composer and top-level saxophonist, Mindi Abair, has defined her own niche in the saxophone and music world.

She debuted her solo career with her first album in 1999, and has recorded 11 more albums since then, and garnered 2 Grammy nominations.

Mindi has performed with Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen, Smokey Robinson, Trombone Shorty, the Backstreet Boys, Teena Marie, Rick Braun, Dave Koz, and many others.

She has been the featured saxophonist on American Idol for a few seasons. Mindi also was featured on the Late Show with David Letterman and the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

She has recently performed and recorded her original Blues music with the Boneshakers and in 2018, they won 8 Independent Blues Awards.

Mindi wrote the book, How To Play Madison Square Garden – A Guide To Stage Performance, created the website http://www.prettygoodforagirl.net to celebrate women, and has served almost 10 years as an LA Chapter Governor, President and National Trustee for The Recording Academy.

In 2019, Mindi launched Reserve Tastings Wine company, a lifestyle company merging wine + music with members-only exclusive wines paired with curated playlists, label-art and branded wine and music festivals.

This was an enlightening conversation no matter what genre you perform, whether it’s Rock, Blues, Bebop or Classical music.

In this interview, we talked about:

The huge influence her dad had on shaping her career
What Joe Viola repeatedly said to her as a student at the Berklee School of Music
How George Garzone changed the way she heard music
Stories from touring with Aerosmith (this is R-rated!)
What it was like performing with Bruce Springsteen
Why she wrote her book, How to Play Madison Square Garden, and what was missing from college music classes
The process of creating her own mouthpiece with Theo Wanne
How she got into the lifestyle wine business
And much more!