Erica Lindsay

Erica Lindsay
Erica Lindsay is a composer and jazz saxophonist. She performs with her own quartet as well as co-leads a quartet with pianist Sumi Tonooka. Her most current CD, “Initiation” is from that ensemble with Rufus Reid on bass and Bob Braye on drums. She has been cited by Royal Stokes of the Jazz Times as being “ a player of enormous gifts and a composer and arranger of striking originality.” As a saxophonist Lindsay has performed with ensembles lead by Melba Liston, Mc Coy Tyner, Clifford Jordon, Baikida Carroll, Howard Johnson and Oliver Lake. She studied with pianist Mal Waldron in her teens and after a stint at Berklee College of Music, began her professional career in Europe. She began as a big band composer and has written for radio, theatre, dance and T.V. Recently she has been exploring orchestral possibilities incorporating her experience as a jazz improviser, participating in the first Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute with the American Composers Orchestra. She now lives in Rosendale, NY and presently is on faculty at Bard College. She released “Dreamer,” as a Candid Records artist and is now recording with the Artist Recording Collective.

Mantra
This piece is a musical expression of the process of meditating on a mantra. Although the mantra – a three note repeated theme – is continuous (with a distracting theme disrupting the meditative pace at certain points) the varying harmonic colors help describe the various moods and shadings of mental thought that unfolds as the meditation progresses. Beginning with a deep meditative pulse and ending with the jubilation of being released from the world of the body, enlightenment is achieved.