Jazz Articles about Amanda Gardier

About Amanda Gardier

Album Review

Amanda Gardier: Flyover Country

Read "Flyover Country" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
April 25, 2020

Saxophonist Amanda Gardier's sophomore recording, Flyover Country, opens with her original, “Midwestern Gothic," a tune which shifts between serene reveries and pronouncements so bold they could fit--switch out the acoustic rhythm section and the saxophone for some muscular, loud electric guitars--into an in-you-face heavy metal band. A fine way to open the show. Gardier pares things down in comparison to her debut, Empathy (Green Mind Records, 2018), where she employed a larger ensemble. The quartet approach suits her, ...

Album Review

Amanda Gardier: Empathy

Read "Empathy" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
July 26, 2018

With a clear sense of composition and where her own fluid voice, and those of her superb surrounding musicians, fall within the whole, Indiana-based alto saxophonist Amanda Gardier opens her debut disc, Empathy, on the multi-layered strengths of the palette-setting “Giants," an expansive piece that allows her plenty of time in the lead before gracefully stepping aside for a guitar-fuelled crescendo. Each of Gardier's ten originals on Empathy exemplifies her guiding principle to “turn the perceived notion of ...