01.Do You Miss Me?
02.Long Ride Home
03.It Must Be Love
04.The Joint
05.Rain
06.True Blue
07.Slinky
08.Ordinary Love
09.Bloom
10.Far Away

Mindi Abair (vocals, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, keyboards)
Michael Landau (guitar)
Matthew Hager (guitars, keyboards, bass instrument, percussion, drum programming)
Keb' Mo' (dobro)
Ricky Petersen (piano, organ)
Stevo Theard (keyboards, drum programming)
Larry Klein, Stan Sargeant (bass instrument)
John "J.R." Robinson (drums)
Paulinho Da Costa (percussion)
Lalah Hathaway (background vocals)

Saxophonist Mindi Abair’s smashing good looks may have a part in her success and exposure, but there’s no denying the craft of her first two CDs and their picture-perfect smooth-jazz singles. With her sales numbers growing, you might have expected this CD to further the arc of her hit-making blueprint. But now she’s gone all Sanborn on us, emulating one of her sax heroes. With Life Less Ordinary it’s clear that Abair won’t be satisfied popping out repetitive grooves each year. That doesn’t mean that the CD doesn’t have its share of hits. Two instrumental tracks stand out as among the catchiest she’s recorded: “Bloom” and “Long Ride Home.”

Abair and musical partner Matthew Hager clearly want to capture the energy of a live show. Abair’s playing, mostly on the alto, is looser and blusier. Her funky alto solo during the intro to “Do You Miss Me” signals her new sound, as does the pounding bass line. The bluesy feel is recaptured on the smoky-bar vibe of “The Joint,” where Abair’s sax floats and screeches over a repeated blues-guitar riff straight from the ’70s.

She switches gears on the percussive, crunch-and-funk hip-hop grooves of “Slinky,” fusing funk, chill music and pop to maximum effect, and dips into country-rock territory with Rickie Lee Jones’ “It Must Be Love.” While Abair channels Jones’ voice, Lalah Hathaway soothes on background vocals and Keb’ Mo’ lays down a brief Dobro solo. An ever better vocal track is the original “Ordinary Love,” where Abair sings in lower registers than normal in a swaying, tropical tune with banging percussion and dreamy background refrains of “aah, aah.”

Elsewhere, a melancholy sax line and haunting, midtempo melody highlight “Rain,” a tune dedicated to the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast rebuilding their lives after Hurricane Katrina. Abair’s repeated dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah vocalese brightens “True Blue,” while the touching, waltzlike ballad “Far Away” closes the CD with Abair’s sax melting away into anthemic-yet-dreamy wordless vocals. ---Brian Soergel, jazztimes.com

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01. Smile 4:28
02. On And On 4:17
03. Out Of The Blue 4:15
04. Stars 4:01
05. F.L.A. Swing 4:34
06. I Wonder 3:45
07. Gingerbread Man 3:42
08. Change 4:23
09. Mojo 3:16
10. Here For You 4:14
11. Gonna Be Alright 3:54

Mindi Abair - Flute, Keyboards, Percussion, Piano, Sax (Alto), Sax (Soprano), Saxophone, Vocals
Charlean Carmon - Vocals (Background)
Ryan Dankanich - Sax (Baritone)
Shawn Davis - Bass, Guitar (Bass)
Richard Dodd - Cello
Dee-Dee Foster - Vocals (Background)
Matthew Hager - Bass, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Bass), Guitar (Electric), Keyboards, Percussion, Piano, Sound Effects, Tambourine, Vocals (Background)
Kenya Hathaway - Vocals (Background)
Abe Laboriel, Jr. - Drums, Tambourine
Ricky Peterson - Keyboards, Organ, Piano, Wurlitzer Piano
Dwight Sills - Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric)
Jason Steele - Synthesizer Strings
John Taylor - Guitar (Acoustic)
Stephen Tirpak - Horn, Horn Arrangements, Trombone, Trumpet

On one of 2008's most popular and dynamic urban contemporary jazz releases, the popular saxophonist made certain to live up to the lofty title of her previous outing, Life Less Ordinary. Aiming for those Stars, she expanded on the vocalizing she did on her earlier outings and wrote a batch of infectious songs that showcased her attractive vocals like never before. Five tracks -- nearly half the disc -- are adult contemporary pop songs that fit comfortably on the charts alongside John Mayer, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Sara Bareilles. It may have seemed risky to push the envelope after scoring a number one album, but her instrumental hits always showed that she was a popster at heart. Helping Abair and her guitarist/producer Matthew Hager realize her creative "outside the box" approach is a choice group of stalwarts from the pop world: keyboardist Ricky Peterson, drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr., and Richard Dodd, cello player for the Foo Fighters. With the media so immersed in reflecting the ongoing despair and difficulties of life around the globe in the 2000s, Abair's ultimate goal with her five vocal tracks is to bring light to the darkness, an unapologetic, optimistic sense of hope and idealism. Case in point: the lilting folk-pop tune "Change," written with frequent collaborator Tyrone Stevens, says that change is the one thing we can count on, and also the concept that can bring us all together. On the power pop title track ballad, she looks to the "Stars" as a connective thread between lovers who are far apart in physical distance. The Elton John/Lionel Richie-influenced "On and On" reflects wistfully on the innocence of her small-town youth (in St. Petersburg, FL) and the way music has become an integral spiritual part of so many people's lives. Her heartfelt, keyboard-driven anthem "I Wonder" is her generation's twist on the concept of "Imagine," while "Here for You" is an uplifting, autobiographical old-school soul-blues ballad that chronicles her incredible years-long friendship with Hager. These are smartly balanced by instrumentals that range from light and jangling ("Smile") to edgy, bluesy, and funky ("F.L.A. Swing"). ---Jonathan Widran, Rovi

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01 – Any Way You Wanna (Abair/Theard)
02 – All Star (Abair/Rodrigues)
03 – L’Esprit Nouveau (Abair/Stevens)
04 – Get Right [featuring Ryan Collins] (Abair/Collins/Rodrigues)
05 – Be Beautiful [featuring David Ryan Harris] (Harris)
06 – Down For The Count (Abair/Theard)
07 – Girls’ Night Out (Abair/Hager)
08 – Let The Whole World Know (Sing Your Song) (Abair/Rodrigues)
09 – It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World [featuring Lalah Hathaway] (Brown/Newsome)
10 – Take Me Home (Abair/Theard/Parlapiano)
11 – The Alley (Abair/Lee/Gore/Tate/Belled)

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