During her remarkable 22-year recording career, saxophonist/vocalist Mindi Abair has garnered 2 GRAMMY nominations, recorded with some of the biggest names in music, and built a substantial following among jazz and blues audiences with her soaring melodies and powerhouse style. In 2014, Mindi received her first GRAMMY nomination in the Best Pop Instrumental Album category for Summer Horns with Dave Koz, Richard Elliot and Gerald Albright, followed by a 2015 GRAMMY nomination for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album for her solo LP Wild Heart featuring the late Gregg Allman, Joe Perry, Trombone Shorty, Booker T. Jones, Keb’ Mo’, and Max Weinberg. You might know her as the featured saxophonist on American Idol, sitting in with Paul Shaffer on The Late Show with David Letterman and The Roots on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, or from moonlighting on tour with Aerosmith and Duran Duran. Since her debut album in 2000, she has consistently topped the Billboard Contemporary Jazz and Blues charts. In 2018, Mindi Abair and The Boneshakers won 8 Independent Blues Awards including Artist of the Year, and an Independent Music Award for Best Blues Song “Pretty Good For A Girl” featuring Joe Bonamassa. They won the 2019 LA Critics Award for Best Holiday Album for All I Got For Christmas Is The Blues. And in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 she was nominated by the Blues Music Awards as the Best Instrumentalist: Horn. As creator, designer and owner, she has successfully launched wineandjazz.com in 2019 as a lifestyle concept that brings together the worlds of wine and music through members-only exclusive wines paired with personally curated music playlists, label art and branded wine and music worldwide adventures and festivals. Phew…..But, I just proudly call her family to the proGram.
Mindi and I had a chance to play catch up while diggin’ into her new album, ‘Forever’, out now on her Pretty Good For A Girl label. We learn a bunch about the personal side of this music and how the pieces fall into place, as they sometimes cosmically do. We learn who just happens to be ‘hanging out’ in the recording process offering a little advice and eventually becomes a background Rainbow singer. There’s time spent talking about pairing wines and music – the give back and of course, Mind i is somehow always prepared to takeover my show and play one of her new tnes and have a plan for a great set of greenarrowradio music for the listeners. Family.
