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Erica Lindsay

Erica Lindsay, tenor saxophonist and composer, currently leads her own quartet featuring Francesca Tanksley on piano, and co-leads a quartet with pianist Sumi Tonooka that features Bob Braye and Rufus Reid. Two new recordings with these ensembles respectively are, "Yes - Live at the Rosendale Cafe" and the soon to be released, "Initiation". She also currently performs with the Oliver Lake Big Band, the Baikida Carroll Quintet, the Howard Johnson, Hojo5 Quintet, the Jeff Siegel Quartet and the San Francisco-based group, Trace Elements. Her most recent recordings with these ensembles are, "Cloth" (Oliver Lake Big Band), "Magical Spaces" and "Live in Europe" (Jeff Siegel Quartet), "Marionettes on a High Wire," (Baikida Carroll Quintet), and "Parallel Universe" (Trace Elements). Lindsay is presently working on releasing two duo projects: one with percussionist Ricky Carter ("Soulcatcher") and the other with drummer Bob Braye ("Oceans").

Royal Stokes, writing for the Jazz Times has called her "a player of enormous gifts and a composer and arranger of striking originality". Nat Hentoff states, "Erica Lindsay plays with such an emotional spontaneity that she is very much in the tradition of those jazz makers who were so evidently taking joy in surprising themselves each night, each song, each bar. She has a distinctive clarity and fullness of sound as well as an acute sense of dynamics. Her compositions are also characterized by an invigorating clarity of form and direction". Bob Margolis for the Kingston Freeman says "Her profound, soul-searching technique straddles Coltrane's spirituality and Joe Henderson's fiery versatility, making hers a name to watch".

Lindsays parents were educators who moved to Europe in the sixties, raising their family in various European cities. She began her compositional studies at the age of fifteen with Mal Waldron in Munich, where she spent her high school years. She deepened her experience of the music through her exposure to jazz expatriates Mal Waldron, Dexter Gordon, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Griffiths, Jimmie Woode, and Benny Bailey as well as the continuing flow of visiting jazz greats. Upon graduating from high school she continued her studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

When she returned to Europe, Lindsay focused on her compositional work, writing and arranging for various big bands and composing for the many different smaller groups she performed with. She was involved in the vibrant, free-jazz scene that existed then in Europe and was an original member and composer of the Unique Munich Saxophone Choir. During this period she formed her first quintet and also did guest performances with Frank Zappa and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

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3
Album Review

Alchemy Sound Project: Afrika Love

Read "Afrika Love" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


The group Alchemy Sound Project is the result of five accomplished composers and bandleaders pooling their resources. The five are saxophonists Salim Washington and Erica Lindsay, trumpeter Samantha Boshnack, pianist Sumi Tonooka and bassist David Arend. Each one contributes a composition to this, their third release together. The result is a varied set of complex and restless modern jazz, arranged to showcase the playing talents of the group's members. Arend's “The Fountain" is a jangling group collage which ...

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Album Review

Alchemy Sound Project: Afrika Love

Read "Afrika Love" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Confirming the many advantages of a regular working ensemble, the Alchemy Sound Project came together in 2014 to provide an additional venue of exploration for several members of the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute in Los Angeles. Although the group possesses an affinity for fusing classical composition techniques with expansive improvisation, what stands out on Afrika Love, the collective's third release, is its undisguised love of the jazz tradition. With a three-horn core of trumpeter Samantha Boshnack and multi-instrumentalists ...

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Album Review

Erica Lindsay and Sumi Tonooka: Initiation

Read "Initiation" reviewed by Woodrow Wilkins


Tenor saxophonist Erica Lindsay and pianist Sumi Tonooka began working together at a jazz club in Albany, New York. Their combined creativity brings something out in each other, leading them to Initiations. Lindsay and Tonooka have been playing together since 1994, but Initiations is their first studio collaboration. They're accompanied by bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Bob Braye, who sadly died after the session. The lively, lounge jazz “Mari" opens the set, featuring some ...

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Album Review

Erica Lindsay / Sumi Tonooka: Initiation

Read "Initiation" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose


The naked emotion of Initiation can be so heartfelt at times that the urge to block out all external sound and focus solely on the music that issues out of the speakers is often overwhelming. Tenor saxophonist Erica Lindsay and pianist Sumi Tonooka have made a journey here that has taken them right to the center of their respective beings with some truly soul-searching music. Fortuitously they have been doubly blessed on this outing by one of the most erudite ...

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Album Review

Erica Lindsay / Sumi Tonooka: Initiation

Read "Initiation" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard


While the discography of saxophonist Erica Lindsay is yet relatively modest, she still plays with the knowledge and authority of a seasoned musician. Initiation sees her teaming up with an old acquaintance, pianist Sumi Tonooka, and together they make a profoundly swinging and poetic music whose life-affirming quality it is hard to deny. “Mari" immediately grabs the attention, setting forth some infectious rhythms, courtesy of the late drummer Bob Braye and preeminent bassist Rufus Reid. While Braye ...

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Album Review

Erica Lindsay / Sumi Tonooka: Initiation

Read "Initiation" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Pianist Sumi Tonooka and tenor saxophonist Erica Lindsay are the leaders on Initiation, having contributed five compositions each. It's the chemistry and the collective organic spontaneity of the whole quartet, however, that moves the sound into the level of top-tier excellence. Bassist Rufus Reid constructs solid, big-sound foundations, and drummer Bob Braye --who, sadly, passed away after this recording was made --bustles and tromps with a fierce percussive fire on the up-tempo tunes and whispers with a fine finesse on ...

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Performance / Tour

Free program at Bard features 'ASR Records Artists the Erica Lindsay/Sumi Tonooka Quartet

Free program at Bard features 'ASR Records Artists the Erica Lindsay/Sumi Tonooka Quartet

Source: All About Jazz

BARD MUSIC PROGRAM PRESENTS AN EVENING OF CLASSICAL MUSIC AND JAZZ ON OCTOBER 19 Free program at Bard features 'ASR Records Artists the Erica Lindsay/Sumi Tonooka Quartet ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.--The Bard Music Program presents a classical/jazz concert on Wednesday, October 19. Free and open to the public, the program will begin at 8:00 p.m. in Olin Hall. The classical section of the program features the Bard Orchestra, directed by ...

75

Performance / Tour

Free program at Bard features 'ASR Records Artists the Erica Lindsay/Sumi Tonooka Quartet

Free program at Bard features 'ASR Records Artists the Erica Lindsay/Sumi Tonooka Quartet

Source: All About Jazz

BARD MUSIC PROGRAM PRESENTS AN EVENING OF CLASSICAL MUSIC AND JAZZ ON OCTOBER 19 Free program at Bard features 'ASR Records Artists the Erica Lindsay/Sumi Tonooka Quartet ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.--The Bard Music Program presents a classical/jazz concert on Wednesday, October 19. Free and open to the public, the program will begin at 8:00 p.m. in Olin Hall. The classical section of the program features the Bard Orchestra, directed by ...

187

Performance / Tour

Erica Lindsay with Oliver Lake/John Hicks Big Band

Erica Lindsay with Oliver Lake/John Hicks Big Band

Source: All About Jazz

'ASR Records artist, Erica Lindsay will be performing with Oliver Lake's Big Band this week at the Jazz Gallery in NYC. Ms. Lindsay, is a world-class tenor saxophonist, composer and recording artist who first debuted as a leader on the NYC jazz scene in the late 1980s. She can also be heard on the latest Oliver Lake Big Band recording, Cloth (Passin' Thru Records). Her quintet was first heard on her debut release for Candid Records (CCD 79040), Erica Lindsay ...

92

Performance / Tour

Jazz Gallery: Erica Lindsay with Oliver Lake/John Hicks Big Band

Jazz Gallery:  Erica Lindsay with Oliver Lake/John Hicks Big Band

Source: All About Jazz

Erica Lindsay with Oliver Lake/John Hicks Big Band

'ASR Records artist, Erica Lindsay will be performing with Oliver Lake's Big Band this week at the Jazz Gallery in NYC. Ms. Lindsay, is a world-class tenor saxophonist, composer and recording artist who first debuted as a leader on the NYC jazz scene in the late 1980s. She can also be heard on the latest Oliver Lake Big Band recording, Cloth (Passin' Thru Records). Her quintet was first ...

150

Performance / Tour

Erica Lindsay with the Oliver Lake Big Band

Erica Lindsay with the Oliver Lake Big Band

Source: All About Jazz

'ASR Records artist, Erica Lindsay will be performing with Oliver Lake's Big Band this week at the Jazz Standard in NYC. Ms. Lindsay, is a world-class tenor saxophonist, composer and recording artist who first debuted as a leader on the NYC jazz scene in the late 1980s. She can also be heard on the latest Oliver Lake Big Band recording, Cloth (Passin' Thru Records). Her quintet was first heard on her debut release for Candid Records (CCD 79040), Erica Lindsay ...

100

Performance / Tour

Erica Lindsay with Howard Johnson Quintet

Erica Lindsay with Howard Johnson Quintet

Source: All About Jazz


"Tenor saxophonist Erica Lindsay wails in the open, unfettered fashion of the late freebopper Dewey Redman at this gig in upstate New York." - Bill Milkowski, JazzTimes (May 01, 2009)

"Elsewhere, she blows with elegance and grace on the introspective “Dusk-Fall” and the mesmerizing “Night of Roses.” " - Bill Milkowski, JazzTimes (May 01, 2009)

"Lindsay lights it up on the urgent title track, the cooker “Dance of the Elves” and the modal “Gotta Get to It.” " - Bill Milkowski, JazzTimes (May 01, 2009)

"Erica Lindsay's "profound, soul-searching technique straddles Coltrane’s spirituality and Joe Henderson’s fiery versatility. " - Bob Margolis, Daily Freeman

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Afrika Love

Artists Recording Collective
2021

buy

Initiation

ARC - Artists Recording Collective
2010

buy

The Fountain

From: Afrika Love
By Erica Lindsay

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