Page 16 - BiTS_04_APRIL_2023

BiTS: Do you play any other types of saxophone?

MA: I do, actually. My first probably four or so, four or five records are about half and half soprano
saxophone and alto saxophone and I picked up tenor later. I don't play it much as a solo artist,
but if I’m playing on the road with Aerosmith, like I did years ago, I'll play tenor, and when I

played with Springsteen for a night, that was tenor, of course, so here and there. And I bought a
baritone sax, probably, I don't know, maybe ten years ago now and that has been just such a blast
to play [chuckling]. So you know it's as big as I am, and I just love every second of it. So I've played
that on a number of my records now.

BiTS: If you're listening to saxophone players, who do you listen to? Who's your outstanding
player?

MA: I love a lot of players, you know, growing up I was a rock and roll kid and so I was watching
all the rocker guys, Clarence Clemons I would watch with Springsteen and I just thought, wow,
so cool, and Maceo Parker with James Brown. Maceo was an alto player that just played like no
one else did. He had this rhythmic
style to his playing that was just
really funky and then when I got
into college at Berkeley College of
Music in Boston, I really learned
what jazz was. I didn't grow up
with that. I grew up with blues and
rock and I became a huge Wayne
Shorter fan who we just lost
yesterday, which is a big loss to the
saxophone community.

BiTS: Ain’t that the truth.
Wayne Shorter
MA: And I also got into Cannonball
Adderley. He was this really great mix of blues and soul and jazz and he really kind of led the

way for me. When I was in high school, my father took me to a David Sanborn concert and I just
remember this light bulb going off in my head because, you know, I grew up with rock and roll
and blues and soul music around me and I just thought, well, here's the saxophone. I don't quite
know what to do with this, but I'm having fun playing it. And David Sanborn and his band came
on and they were like a pop band, except he was playing saxophone instead of being the lead
singer, and it all made sense to me. I could be the lead singer. I could be what I was seeing with
all these bands with Tina Turner and Aerosmith and Heart. I could be that person in the front,
but it would be with the saxophone mostly, and so that was a great thing. I was always and still
am a fan of David Sanborn for putting that light off in my head.

BiTS: That's wonderful. Over the years you've done many, many different things, all kinds of
stuff, not just music, but some what I call broadly admin jobs with the Grammy people and that
sort of thing. What is it that drives you, Mindi? Why do you dip into so much?

MA: You know, I love music and I never went into music thinking I was going to be a rock musician
or a jazz musician or, you know, I didn't figure, ooh, I'll be this. I was just driven by what I loved.
And I think as a person, you morph and you change and you learn and you grow. And so many
of the artists that I admire have done that and have grown and morphed and made different
records. People like Miles Davis or people like Rickie Lee Jones, you know, they morphed and
changed and they created different things as they went along. So I've always just followed my

passions and done what moved me because at the end of the day, I have to love my records and