Jazz Monthly.com Interview with mindi abair

“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Mindi Abair

Smitty: Well, as always, I am ecstatic to invite back my next guest. She is such a mainstay and has a special welcome always at JazzMonthly.com. She’s an incredible saxophonist, one of my dearest friends in the business, and I’m always excited when she has new music and, oh, wait til you hear her new record. It is called Stars. It is an incredible mix of great tunes with some fantastic vocals. I don’t want to waste another minute. Please welcome the incredible and amazing Ms. Mindi Abair. Mindi, how are you, my friend?

Mindi Abair (MA): I’m great, Smitty. It’s great to talk to you again, great to be on your show. Thanks for having me.

Smitty: Oh, it’s always a pleasure. You know that. (Both laugh.) Hey, you have been one busy young lady. Wow! I mean, where do you start? I mean, now, from the last record to this one, you have just toured the world, you have done some incredible shows. I’ve been able to be there in person myself, so I can attest to these fantastic shows.

MA: You have been to a lot of them. I love that. I love looking out and going, hey, I know that face.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

MA: It’s always great to see your face and friendly faces in the audience you can look to.

Smitty: Thank you and it’s always great to hear that great saxophone and, oh, I just can’t hold back from saying how much I enjoyed the vocals on your great new record. Wow! Congratulations.

MA: Thank you, thank you. Yeah, we had a fun time putting this record together. I kind of went for broke.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

MA: Figured the record industry isn’t what it used to be, you know, I mean, obviously, if anyone’s reading the news, records aren’t selling and everyone’s scared and what’s gonna happen and radio stations are going under. It’s kind of “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” but I have to say as an artist I kinda look at it as a time to just go for broke, make the record you wanna make, and I think that people, if they like your music, they’re gonna buy it, they’re gonna come to your shows, and if you don’t make the music you’re wanna make, then why do it?

Smitty: Exactly.

MA: If you don’t believe in what you’re doing, why do it? I really had it in my heart to write these songs and write all these vocals, and I just thought, I just gotta put it on the record, and I’ve always put a couple of vocals on each record, but this time it turned out to be a half and half kind of adventure, so I went for it.

Smitty: Yeah, and I was pleasantly surprised and, man, they are fantastic. Wow!

MA: Thank you.

Smitty: I love the instrumental—well, there are some vocals there too—but I love “Smile.” It’s a great song.

MA: “Smile” is so fun. I love that you love that. (Laughs.)

Smitty: Yep, I’m always running around “Da-da-da, da-da-da.” (Both laugh.)

MA: You know, so many of my songs over the years I’ve kinda used my vocals as an instrument and it kind of has become this thread of songs. I used it on “True Blue” and “Lucy’s” and “Make A Wish.”

Smitty: Yeah, it’s a great signature!

MA: And this one just kinda started out with me singing just a “Da-da-da-da, da-da-da,” and it just kinda went from there and I brought in some cool guitar.

Smitty: Very cool.

MA: And sax and it’s a really simple song but I just think it’s really fun to kinda sing along with it and I love that.

Smitty: Yes indeed, and speaking of guitar. Man, I love the guitar work on this record. Matthew slams on guitar!

MA: Thank you. Well, my co-writer and producer, Matthew [Hager], he plays a lot of the guitar. Kinda the more rockin’ stuff and a lot of the acoustic stuff is him, and then we also brought in a guy named Dwight Sills, who is just ridiculous and he plays kinda some of the funkier stuff and some of the guitar solos.

Smitty: Yeah, incredible string work. I’m just lovin’ everything about this record.

MA: Aw, thank you. Yeah, I’m such a guitar freak. I just love pop music, I love rock music, and growing up on that, guitar is such a huge part of that. I know it’s a little different in the jazz genre, you know, mostly to use more guitar than keyboards, but I gotta say I just like the way it sounds and I love a good acoustic guitar, I love a good kinda rockin’ guitar, so a lot of my stuff is that.

Smitty: Yeah, and it’s fantastic. I mean, it’s a crossover of jazz and pop, and I think it blends very well the way you and Matthew work together. You guys have scored another gem. It’s incredible work, yeah.

MA: Thank you.

Smitty: And just to get away from the record for a second, you have just had some fun in the past few months. What I love about you is you don’t hide anything about the fun you’re having because we love your diary, I love the blogs on your MySpace page, and you’re always keeping everyone so informed about what you’re doing, where you’re gonna be, what’s happening, and I think that’s a very cool thing when an artist is very communicative with their fan base, and I think that’s just a beautiful thing, but you have just had so much fun and shared that with the world, and that’s a very cool thing.

MA: Yeah, I think that part of the beauty of the Internet and just being so connected with everyone that the world has become such a smaller place now with cell phones and Internet. I feel that it allows us as artists to be a part of you, the listener. It’s just all one big family now and you can really keep up with people differently than you could a few years ago. I can be on tour and upload a blog entry and say “Look, here’s the band in Istanbul” or “Check us out. I’m standing here with Earl Klugh in Atlanta,” and those were two of my last entries. I think it’s just fun to be able to share the cool things that happen on the road because lots of cool things do happen on the road, and it’s more than just you buy a CD and you go “Oh, I like that music.” Usually if I buy someone’s CD and I like their music, I wanna know a little bit more.

Smitty: Yeah, that’s so true.

MA: And for me as an artist, I like sharing that stuff, so I think it’s fun and you can at least look on the diary page and know you’re gonna get some kind of weird story for that day. (Both laugh.)

Smitty: Oh yeah. And speaking of that, you have a great fan club and it seems to be growing every day. How’s that going? How do you like interacting with the fan club? That’s gotta be a beautiful experience.

MA: You know, it’s a really interesting thing to have a fan club. I had never had a fan club before a little over a year ago and I never quite knew what it would be, and I had people who would ask me “Oh, let me start a fan club for you” and I just always was hesitant, you know, “Well, I don’t know what that would be like. I’m not sure about that.” But finally a girl named Pam McGregor, she had come to every show in Florida for years and she’s just such a cool girl and she talked me into it, and she is the perfect fan club president, I have to say, and she has just built this incredible little world—we call it MindiWorld—and they’ve got their own Web site and they get stuff from all different fans across the world. People will bring in stuff and we’ll send them stuff as well so they get kinda the scoop before anyone else does on different things, and they have things that they can buy that other people can’t, exclusive stuff. My first record is called Always and Never the Same that I released independently years ago and is up on that site, you can only buy it if you’re a member of the fan club, you know, cool stuff like that. So she’s just really built this very cool little world and keeps everybody up on what’s happening. They do newsletters and I gotta say it’s really fun. People come backstage every night from the fan club, we do little meet and greets so I can say hi to everyone, and it’s really become a cool little community, so I gotta say it was the perfect thing to do and she was the right person to put it all together.

Smitty: Yep, I know Pam. She’s very enthusiastic. (Laughs.)

MA: Oh yeah, she is a fan.

Smitty: Yes, she is. Speaking of that, you’re making new fans every day because now you’re traveling around the world, you just got back from Istanbul, Romania…talk about the vibe in other countries where you’ve toured and how that all interacts with your tour on the road.

MA: What’s interesting, I love going to other countries because you learn so much and you absorb these other cultures and you just get to experience all these different things other than America has to offer, and in the same respect, I think we’re bringing them a little bit of American culture with our music and so it’s kind of a cool give and take to go to other countries and play. I went to Istanbul this past week and it was so incredible just to be in a place that has such a history. I mean, the buildings aren’t 200 years old, they’re a thousand years old.

Smitty: Yeah.

MA: It’s ridiculous but it was wild. My radio show, Chill With Mindi Abair, it plays all over in America in about 40 markets, but it also plays in Istanbul on Power XL, and it was so wild to sit down with the people from Power XL and do a little interview and just realize that we have so much in common, and we all listen to a lot of the same stuff and their stuff is a tad different, a little more worldly and maybe a little more stuff from their world, the Arabic world, Eastern Europe, but it was so cool to kind of see our similarities and see our tastes in music and kind of just be inspired by each other, and it was really, really interesting to see how small the world can get.

Smitty: Yeah, and that’s thousands of miles away and there you are, you know?

MA: Oh yeah.

Smitty: Isn’t that a cool thing?

MA: Yeah, it really is and you get the chance to do things over there that you just don’t do in America. We were scheduled to play at this huge palace and in America when they say you’re playing the palace, you’re playing in some dingy rock club downtown with the wallpaper peeling off the walls in the bathrooms or something.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

MA: But in Istanbul, when they say you’re playing the palace, you are playing the palace. (Both laugh.) And it was just beautiful. We were overlooking the Bosphorus River and it was stunning.

Smitty: Oh wow.

MA: I’ve gotta say it was a great trip to go over there this past time. I know we’ll go back.

Smitty: Yeah.

MA: We went to Japan last year, late last year, and that was an amazing trip as well, so yeah, I’m kind of looking forward to even more of that kind of foreign exchange.

Smitty: Well, I think your career—we’ve talked over the years about your career and I’ve always said you’re probably about four or five years ahead of a normal career, but now I think you’re beyond that now. (Both laugh.) Things are just moving so fast.

MA: Wow, I appreciate that. That’s great.

Smitty: Yeah, I think it’s a beautiful thing, and you’re at a new label now and I think that’s crazy good and just really cool. You’re at Peak Records now and that’s gotta be nice to land at another label.

MA: Yeah, I have to say Concord, the parent label, is amazing. I mean, obviously Paul McCartney is on Concord and Starbucks signed to Concord. Peak is their more contemporary jazz subsidiary and Peak gave me my own imprint as well, so I’ve got a little boutique label off of Peak Records called 23 Music Group.

Smitty: Oh, cool.

MA: I figured that that was kind of the next career move, was to have my own little boutique label so that in the future I could sign acts that I think are cool, kinda bring new music to the table, and have a part in it.

Smitty: How nice.

MA: Yeah, I’ve got my own little boutique going on, on Peak Records and I think it’s great.

Smitty: Okay, well, get ready for the e-mail and phone calls. (Both laugh.)

MA: Well, we’ll get my record out there first, see how it goes.

Smitty: Yeah. (Both laugh.) This record I think is going to be just fantastic for the audience around the world because it has something for everyone. I think it has so many different colors. It reminds you of a diamond with so many facets and just some incredible prisms, you know, that there’s something there for everyone. I think it’s just gonna be a really nice hit for everyone to enjoy.

MA: Thank you so much. What a nice thing to say.

Smitty: (Laughs.) That’s straight from the pump.

MA: Every time I go to write for a new record, I just kinda take what’s going on in my life and go with it, and I have been listening to so much new music and so many cool artists have come out in the past year that it’s just been an inspiring time, I think, in music.

Smitty: Mm-hmm. So true.

MA: I mean, music changed lately, you know? You’ve got people playing instruments and writing and singing. People like Sarah Bareilles with “I’m Not Gonna Write You a Love Song” or Feist, which was probably my favorite record of last year, just going out there and playing guitar and singing and just writing these cool songs. It’s like she takes chances. She’ll have tuba in a pop song, you know? How fun is that?

Smitty: (Laughs.)

MA: So it’s like kind of being inspired by the newer crop of singer-songwriters and so with this record we took a few chances and had some fun and just made a record that I wanted to hear.

Smitty: Yeah, and just going with your heart. I think that’s so important when it comes to making music.

MA: Yeah.

Smitty: And people gravitate to that and embrace it because they feel those emotions, and that’s what we all love and enjoy, yeah.

MA: I hope so, you know? I think I made a very optimistic record and a very hopeful record. You kinda look at it after you’ve written it and kinda see what the thread is and what the whole record is as a whole, and it is very interesting to look back on the writing of it and everything. It just turned out to be this very optimistic record and I think that’s where I’m at. The world is in such a crazy place right now—we’re at war, it’s an election year, the economy is just in a huge slump, and people are just wondering, wow, what do we do? I mean, it’s a tough time for a lotta people and I think that to escape into music that’s fun and makes you feel something and maybe takes you away a little bit. That’s where my head was at, so I hope that people get that, get taken away a little bit.

Smitty: Yeah, and sometimes, too, along with getting taken away from everything, they’re inspired to make some great decisions and to make a difference in their life and in the lives of others too with music like this.

MA: You never know. That’s a hopeful thought: if people can hear music and then make decisions in their life. I never think that deeply about it, but you’re right and I hope that happens! (Both laugh.) I really like that. (Both laugh.)

Smitty: Oh, absolutely. Here’s a thought: being introduced as Mindi Abair the Vocalist. Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it?

MA: It does. It’s interesting to ask different people how they know me. I had a couple come up to me at my Christmas show—I do a Christmas tour with Peter White and Rick Braun every year and we recorded a CD this year, kind of showing what our Christmas show is—and a couple came up to me and they said “Well, we saw your name for a Christmas tour and we know your Christmas song ‘I Can’t Wait for Christmas’ and we love your Christmas song.” It’s a vocal song and they play it on a lot of pop radio stations. Actually, the jazz stations really haven’t embraced it until this past year a little bit. And they said “We didn’t know you played sax. It was such a surprise for us.” (Both laugh.)

Smitty: Oh, how cool is that?

MA: So I just stood back and laughed and just thought, that’s great. I mean, I’ve built my career in the jazz world mostly as a saxophonist and if you listen to contemporary jazz radio, you really mostly only know my saxophone, but it’s funny. The first two records I put out as a solo artist were only vocal and I played sax on two songs on the record.

Smitty: Yeah.

MA: It was all vocals, so different times in my life I’ve kinda felt different things. When I first made my vocal records—I’ve played sax since I was a kid—but when I made my first two solo CDs that were vocals, I just was feeling bored.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

MA: I was really bored with what was going on with jazz and as a sax player I was just kinda bored, and I really thought that pop music was pushing the boundaries in more ways than jazz was at the time and that’s kinda how I was feeling like expressing myself, so I kind of wrote these quirky songs and used guitar and used some weird drum sounds and loops and did all this stuff and that was making me happy at the time and fulfilling what I wanted to hear, and I finally came around to the point where it was sax and vocals, and kind of mixed it in and that’s become who I’ve been known for, is sax and vocals, but it’s interesting. Right now I kind of feel the same way. The pop world is really pushing the boundaries and doing some crazy stuff and people are being experimental and they’re using different arrangements and I think it’s really, really fun and it’s an inspiring place to be, and I hope that the jazz world kinda takes note because there are so many individualists right now in pop that are, oh, this person Feist, she uses cool little horn section stuff and really broken down arrangements with piano, kinda plunking out these things or guitar kind of sparsely in there. Wow, how cool. That’s totally breaking the rules of what’s acceptable. That John Mayer doing a trio album with total musicians’ musicians, Pino Palladino and Steve Jordan. What a cool thing.

Smitty: Yeah.

MA: And that wouldn’t be what’s expected of the super pop guy John Mayer, so I think you can kinda break the rules a little bit, do what you feel like, and that’s the key that I’m going for.

Smitty: Yeah, and I think people—and I’ve said this so many times—that people want something different. We all love variety and I think we get bored, like you mentioned, with the same old thing and it’s important that especially with music, whatever anyone’s doing with music, as promoters, musicians, radio programmers, writers, publicists, keep it fresh and always mix it up, but never do the same thing over and over, because we as fans will eventually check out. It’s just a normal human thing when it comes to music. We love variety.

MA: Yeah.

Smitty: Yeah, and I think you hit it on the head. You’re spot on, yeah.

MA: Yeah, I’m constantly on the lookout for new music and my friends and I go back and forth all the time. “Oh, check out this new band and check out this new band.” I just bought on iTunes Yael Naim’s new record and it’s amazing.

Smitty: Yeah.

MA: Just amazing. She’s the girl who did the MacBook Air, I guess it’s called.

Smitty: Mm-hmm, yes.

MA: And I just loved the song so I’m kinda surfin’ around the Web. Who did that? Who did that?

Smitty: (Laughs.)

MA: Her record’s incredible and just really odd arrangements. She did this kind of moody piano arrangement of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” and I’m just thinking, what a weird song and then all of a sudden I thought, oh my Gosh, that’s “Toxic” by Britney Spears. You’ve gotta be kidding me. (Both laugh.) And here’s this great singer-songwriter doing it just all messed up. And I just love new music, I love seeing what’s out there, so as a fan that’s what I go towards and as an artist, gosh, I’d get bored with myself if I made the same record over and over and over, so I hope the fans of my records will feel the same way and enjoy all the new stuff.

Smitty: I really think so and you’re in such a perfect position with your own radio show. You get to hear and play all kinds of great stuff, you know?

MA: Yeah.

Smitty: What a cool thing, what a cool gig. (Laughs.)

MA: I’m in a very cool position being the host of Chill With Mindi Abair because I do get a lot of really cutting edge music sent to me and we program some great stuff for the show, and for me I’m always kinda scouring around for different artists and different sounds, and I think it’s fun to be able to host a show that I can introduce these new artists to people and introduce them to new music and new kind of ways of thinking about songs and stuff. You know, these great remixers we have on the show, Fever Incorporation and Motion Worker and all these bands. They just really do something different. I mean, who gets to take Billie Holiday’s original tracks and put them to cool dance tracks or mix all these new elements with old elements? I think it’s a great way to bring jazz to a new generation.

Smitty: Yes.

MA: And as an instrumentalist, I mean, that’s definitely what I’m out there doing. You bring your own brand of jazz to people. That’s what I do as a radio host too. It’s kinda fun.

Smitty: Yes, it is. Well, tell me, when does the record drop?

MA: The record comes out officially May 6th.

Smitty: May 6th.

MA: But it’s available for pre-order at www.mindiabair.com and we’re gonna start to play some new music from it in the upcoming shows, but we’re kinda saving most of the music for this very cool online concert that we’re doing.

Smitty: Hey! Talk to me, girl.

MA: Yeah, I’ve never done anything like this and I actually don’t know anyone else who has, but I love technology, I love the fact that we can be a community. You know, like you said earlier, my MySpace blog and www.mindiabair.com I do my diary. I love the online experience. I think it’s cool because anyone in the world can tune in.

Smitty: Yeah.

MA: So I took the chance. We’re doing an online CD release party and it’s gonna be May 1^st at 7 p.m. Pacific Time and we’re gonna go on, we’re gonna play a bunch of new songs from the new CD, we’re gonna play some old songs that everyone knows, but what’s cool is you can interact during the concert.

Smitty: Really?!

MA: It’s not like you turn on your computer and watch a concert. You turn on your computer and you can talk with everyone who’s watching the concert.

Smitty: Oh, I’m lovin’ that.

MA: You could talk to me. I can see everything on the screen and you can vote for songs, what’s gonna be the next song in the set, and you can be a part of the concert. You can even do—they show you the cameras and you can choose the camera angle that you want.

Smitty: How cool. Now, how can people be a part of this? I mean, how do they log on or how do they get to the CD release party?

MA: The site is called www.deeprockdrive.com. And I’m gonna have information on my Web site about exactly how to log on as well as www.myspace.com/mindiabair, and so you can just kinda click and log on. It’s very simple. I did it just to see how hard it was.

Smitty: Yeah.

MA: And I’m kind of an idiot.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

MA: And it was very easy for me, so it’s basically a couple clicks and you’re in. You don’t have to go through all this craziness and whatever.

Smitty: Oh, cool.

MA: It’s very easy. And I’ve also got two invites up on YouTube, so if you go to www.youtube.com you can type in Mindi Abair. Well, there’s a bunch of stuff up there, but there’s one promo for my Deep Rock Drive concert and then I was actually in the airport, London Heathrow Airport, last week and I filmed my own invite. I was kinda walking down the airport, it was loud, it was crazy, but I kinda held the camera out and was like “All right, come down to our concert. It’s really cool.” So, yeah, You Tube, we’ve got a couple things up.

Smitty: Very cool. Well, I will certainly look forward to that and I’m sure everyone will be looking forward to more information and logging in.

MA: Yeah, I mean, what cooler way to get music out there, you know? You just gotta go with technology. It’s fun, it’s ground breaking. I wanna be a part of that.

Smitty: Yeah, that’s why it’s there. Let’s stretch it.

MA: Yeah.

Smitty: Very cool. And you also have some traditional CD release parties coming up too. I mean, in Florida you have some coming and many other locations too, right?

MA: Yeah, I usually do kind of a little acoustic tour. Whenever I have a new CD come out, I usually go out with just my guitar player and we kind of just go around and do our little unplugged concerts, so I’m gonna be in my hometown of St. Petersburg the night the CD comes out. We’re gonna do acoustic shows in Orlando, Melbourne, Florida, of course San Diego. I always do San Diego for my CD release. They’re just the best city in the world and they absolutely made my career, so San Diego’s—you gotta do a huge CD release party.

Smitty: Gotta do that one.

MA: We always do it at the Borders there.

Smitty: Oh, cool.

MA: And usually, yeah, we just fill the whole store. It’s three or four hundred people—it was last time—and just crazy and we have a blast. (Both laugh.)

Smitty: How cool. Wow. Well, we’ll look forward to all of those great dates and this record coming out officially and just to hear some of the responses already and many more to come. Wow. Mindi, I know I’ll see you on the road somewhere before too long and it’ll be fun to see you again, and at the live show setting it’s always fun, always excitement around that, you know?

MA: Oh yeah. I mean, new music, new fun. I love being on stage. I mean, that’s absolutely my favorite place to be, so it’s always fun to translate a new record into live and these songs will be really fun to play for people, so come on out.

Smitty: Yeah, it’s always fun to see what you’re gonna be wearing too, you know? (Both laugh.)

MA: You know, it’s all about that. The guys, maybe not so much.

Smitty: Yeah.

MA: You know, we all have to have our thing and I have my new little shiny sax straps that I designed, so I think it’s kinda fun.

Smitty: Yeah, you’re just into all kinds of cool things, man. You’re just having this cool life and this cool career and we’re so excited and so thankful that you share it with us all. It’s really cool. Thanks for letting in Mindi World.

MA: It’s my pleasure. I’m having a good time, so come along for the ride. I think it’s great.

Smitty: All right, well, I know I’ll be seeing you soon. Hey, and thanks so much for taking some time to talk about this great record and all the beautiful things you’re doing, and it’s always a pleasure, you know that, to talk with you.

MA: Thanks, Smitty.

Smitty: My pleasure. All right, we’ve been talking with the incredible and amazing Ms. Mindi Abair. Her great new record is called Stars. It’ll officially be released May 6th. Don’t miss it and don’t miss all of her upcoming great events, including that great online CD release party May 1st. Look for an announcement on that on her Web site, www.mindiabair.com. Mindi, thanks again, my friend, and we will speak very soon.

MA: Thanks, Smitty. I had a great time.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

For More Information Visit www.mindiabair.com and www.myspace.com/mindiabair and www.mindiworld.org and www.deeprockdrive.com and www.peak-records.com