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Amanda Gardier
Saxophonist, composer, and educator Amanda Gardier has been described as “a uniquely talented jazz composer and soloist” (Nuvo). With a diverse set of influences stemming from Miguel Zenon, The Bad Plus, Bjork, and more, Gardier is an alto saxophonist who juxtaposes the calmness of lush harmonies and cyclical melodies with the intensity of complex rhythms and fiery improvisation. Her first release with Green Mind Records, Empathy, was “a debut with a lot of something for everyone” (All About Jazz). With her second release, Flyover Country, Gardier “claims a space among rising saxophonists” (Downbeat) through the display of bold compositions and flexible improvisation. In addition to her work as a bandleader, Amanda is a current member of the US Navy Band Commodores jazz ensemble, where she is regularly featured as a soloist and woodwind doubler.
As a side musician, Amanda has performed with Ingrid Jensen, Dave Stryker, Leni Stern, Wayne Wallace, Wes "Warmdaddy" Anderson, Jamie Baum, Sal Lozano, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra, and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. She has also been a featured performer on five releases by the Charlie Ballantine Group—Vonnegut (2020), Life is Brief: The Music of Bob Dylan (2018), Where is My Mind? (2017), Providence (2016), and Green (2015).
As an educator, Amanda has served as the instructor of jazz saxophone at Ball State University, jazz saxophone faculty at the Indiana University Summer Saxophone Academy, band director and after-school jazz program director at Zionsville West Middle School, and teaching assistant at Birch Creek Music Performance Center.
Amanda holds a bachelor’s degree in music education and a master’s degree in jazz studies from Indiana University.
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Amanda Gardier, Ill Considered, De Beren Gieren, Marty Isenberg & More
by Ludovico Granvassu
Today we focus on new albums by two revered European bands, De Beren Gieren and Ill Considered, and a peculiar case of artistic synchronicity: two intriguing records of music inspired by the films of Wes Anderson, which have been independently but almost simulatenously concocted by Amanda Gardier and Marty Isenberg in 2022 and recently released.Happy listening!Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 De Beren Gieren “The Houses" What Eludes Us ...
read moreBuselli / Wallarab Jazz Orchestra: The Gennett Suite
by Dan McClenaghan
This is where music for mass consumption--recorded music--started, in Richmond, Indiana, in the 1920s, in a piano factory by the railroad tracks in a glacier-carved gorge. Established in 1887, in the beginning Starr Pianos' bread and butter was pianos, but they branched out to selling other instruments and eventually photographs and records--their own records, recorded in the piano factory, taking breaks in the process when a train came by. At first, they called their recording side of the business Starr ...
read moreCharlie Ballantine: Reflections/Introspection: The Music Of Thelonious Monk
by Chris M. Slawecki
Reflections/Introspection... follows-up guitarist Charlie Ballentine's Life is Brief: The Music of Bob Dylan, the guitarist's tribute to another (and very different type of) iconoclastic modern composer and one of the best albums of 2018. He absolutely bounces through this double-LP (one trio, one quartet) on a merry joyride through the compositions of “the onliest Monk." “Monk has such an incredible catalogue that one of the big challenges we faced was what songs to choose and also what instrumentation ...
read moreCharlie Ballantine: Reflections/Introspection: The Music Of Thelonious Monk
by Mark Sullivan
Indianapolis-based guitarist and composer Charlie Ballantine has made thematically organized albums before. Life is Brief: The Music of Bob Dylan (Green Mind Records, 2018) featured creative versions of songs by the iconic songwriter, and Vonnegut (Green Mind Records, 2020), was made up of original Ballantine compositions inspired by the work of novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Here the inspiration is purely musical, and it is one of the pillars of modern jazz: the brilliant composer & pianist Thelonious Monk. Many of the ...
read moreCharlie Ballantine: Vonnegut
by Mark Sullivan
Indianapolis-based guitarist/composer Charlie Ballantine took his inspiration from iconic American novelist Kurt Vonnegut for this project, the most complex set of music in his already lengthy and varied recording career. He was joined by fellow Indianapolis musicians: saxophonist Rob Dixon, saxophonist/clarinetist Amanda Gardier, pianist Mina Keohane, bassist Jesse Wittman and drummer Cassius Goens. Dixon, Gardier and Wittman have appeared on several prior Ballantine recordings, so there is a strong base of shared experience to draw upon. Kurt Vonnegut ...
read moreAmanda Gardier: Flyover Country
by Dan McClenaghan
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, ...
read moreAmanda Gardier: Empathy
by Mike Jurkovic
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 ...
read moreMusic
Dippermouth Blues
From: The Gennett SuiteBy Amanda Gardier
