Mindi's Journey Through Life

Mindi's Journey Through Life

Bruce Von Stiers

I've always liked jazz. And I tend to drift more towards saxophone based jazz music. Growing up, I listened to Coltrane, Charlie Parker and some of the other legendary sax players. Later, I also liked some of the modern sax players like Dave Koz, Gerald Albright and David Sanborn. But my exposure to women jazz saxophonists was limited to Candy Dulfer.

I really didn't know that there was a particular great woman jazz sax player. That is, until I received an album to review. The album was Come As You Are by saxophonist Mindi Abair. Not only was there fantastic sax music on the album, but Mindi also provided great vocals. My favorite song on that album was I Remember. It was a vocal piece written in memory of a roadie that Mindi was close to who died.

Since that time, I have reviewed several albums by Mindi. Those albums were Wild Heart, The EastWest Sessions, The Best of Mindi Abair, Forever and I Can't Wait For Christmas.

This year Mindi has a brand-new album coming out. The title of the album is Based On A True Story. It is a collection of songs that were inspired by Mindi's life journey. The hopes, the dreams and memories that have carried Mindi through her life and career can be heard throughout the songs on this album. It is being released on Mindi's label, Pretty Good For A Girl Records.

This life journey includes being the featured saxophonist on American Idol, sitting in with Paul Shaffer on the Late Show and touring with Duran Duran and Aerosmith. Her album Wild Heart featured guest performers Joe Perry, Gregg Allman and T. Bone Shorty among other top names. Mindi also founded wineandjazz.com with her husband, Eric. It is a unique pairing of wine and music that, among other things, provides excursions to the vineyards of France and Italy.

Mindi produced the album along with Wayne Rodrigues. A longtime friend of Mindi's, Rodrigues has worked with artists such as Kelly Clarkson, Nelly Furtado, Jewel and Orianthi. Along the way, he won a Grammy or two. Roy McClurg was the album's executive producer.

As she always does on her albums, Mindi recruited some very talented musicians to help out. Ricky Peterson was on the B3 organ. Akil Thompson played bass and electric guitar. Paul Maubry played drums. Andy Brooding played bass on a song. Andrew Joslyn provided strings and strings arrangements for a couple of songs. Mark Rudin played trumpet, trombone, tenor saxophone and provided horn arrangements for a song. Samuel Griffin-Ortiz played electric guitar, keyboards and provided drum programming for one song. Aside from co-producing the album, Wayne Rodrigues played keyboards and drum programming.

As for Mindi, she played alto and soprano saxophones and provided vocals.

Day Dreaming starts out the album. It is a nicely paced toe-tapping piece. If you know Mindi's music at all, you might know that this is one of her songs by the unique sax styling on it.

A Thousand Miles has a really cool rhythm. As the song title kind of suggests, it might make you think of a drive down the highway, without a care in the world, grooving on toward the next phase of life.

Oooh-Aah (Catalina) is a delightful, smile effecting, pop flavored tune.

The Way That You Love Me has a bit of 70's retro pop sound to it. The song has some fantastic vocals from Delisha Thomas, who penned hits for Beyonce, Janet Jackson and Justin Bieber.

3 rd Street Promenade has a unique pairing of saxophone and piano. It features one of my favorite modern jazz pianists, Bobby Lyle. It was Bobby who found Mindi playing on the streets of Santa Monica and asked her to play on his new album. That led to her rise as a top tier saxophone player. This song marks the first time that Bobby has played on an album of Mindi's. Their collaboration on this makes a great song even better.

Siena Sunrise brings things down a bit to a softer, yet still toe-tapping tempo. It was written as a way to capture how beauty of the Tuscany region of Italy.

Nouveau Soul is a slick funk laden piece with really cool trumpet and other horn music supporting Mindi's sax.

Fool's Gold is a slow and endearing love song that features great vocals by Kenny Lattimore.

Falling In Love is another song that features wonderful vocals by Delisha Thomas. The press notes on this song mention something about dancing in the kitchen with your honey. Listening to this song, I can imagine something just like that.

Everything's Gonna Be All Right is a beautiful song with Mindi doing vocals. It also feature terrific vocals from Arthur Thompson. Mindi wrote the song for her daughters as an anthem of “quiet strength and hope.”

The Rundown closes out the album. It is a head-bopping, toe-tapping hella rocking jazz funk piece. It has Mindi on alto sax and features Marcus Miller with some killer bass. It is my favorite song on the album.

I have been a fan of Mindi's music ever since I heard the songs on Come As You Are. I've really enjoyed each of her albums since then. I consider this new album, Based On A True Story, Mindi's best effort to date. The music is excellent, and the vocals are exceptional.

Based On A True Story will be released on June 13 th , 2025. It is available for pre-order now.

To learn more about Mindi and the album, visit https://www.mindiabair.com/

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