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THE BiTS INTERVIEW: Mindi Abair

Mindi Abair is an American saxophonist, vocalist, author, and National Trustee for the
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the organization that puts on the
Grammy Awards show.
Her solo career has produced ten No. 1 radio singles, two No. 1 Billboard Jazz CDs, and
four more solo CDs that have landed No. 5 and above on the Billboard Contemporary
Jazz Charts. She was the featured saxophonist for the 2011 and 2012 seasons of
American Idol, and performed with the rock band Aerosmith. Mindi's recordings have
twice been nominated for Grammy Awards.

BiTS: Hello Mindi. Ian McKenzie in England here.

MA: Yeah, I know. Nice to hear from you.

BiTS: And you. Thanks for agreeing to speak to me. I
hope it's not too early for you.

MA: No, actually this is great. We had a show last night in
Palm Springs and I'm flying home to Northern California,
so I could just fit this right in before the flight. It's great.

BiTS: That's wonderful. Let's make a start then, shall we? Tell
me something about your early life. I'm particularly interested if
there was music in your life when you were growing up? I know
you started in high school, but what about before that?

MA: You know, I grew up on the road with my father's band.
My father Lance Abair, had a band called The Fabulous
Entertainers, and I grew up – I was born on the road, basically.

BiTS: Oh, what a great name.

MA: Yeah. Yeah, it was a blue-eyed soul band. They were
super high energy and fun and they basically took me from the
hospital being born and put me into the band truck and a few
people had kids that were in the band, so they were kind of my
brothers and sisters and I just grew up watching him play, and
when school came around and I was old enough to have school

band when I was eight, I looked at all the instruments. Our band
instructor in 4th-grade band said, here's a bunch of instruments
and go look at them. Pick one out and we'll learn how to play
them. And I walked around and looked and you know what? I had
watched my father play saxophone for so many years and he just
looked like he was having so much fun and he was that guy that
would shake and shimmy and knock his knees together and
walk the bar and, you know, hey as an 8-year-old girl, that
seemed pretty fun [laughing], and I never looked back. So
that's how I started playing saxophone.

BiTS: That was an alto sax?

MA: It was alto saxophone, yes.