Mingledorff grew up in Alabama on the spiritual music of the church and the soulful grooves coming out of Muscle Shoals. After earning a Bachelor of Music in classical saxophone at the University of Alabama, he moved to New Orleans in 1995 to study with jazz patriarch Ellis Marsalis at the University of New Orleans, where he completed his Master of Music in Jazz Performance. He got a second education in the blues clubs of Bourbon Street and soon began touring and recording with the all-star modern brass band the New Orleans Nightcrawlers, young funksters Galactic, and bluesman Mem Shannon — before long playing theaters and arenas with country star Clint Black.
In 2000 he joined a new all-star band, Papa Grows Funk, where they called him “Big Wind.” The band’s 13-year run — legendary Monday-night residencies to Jazz Fest favorites to their unexpected 2013 breakup — is chronicled in the documentary Do U Want It?. Meanwhile Mingledorff began teaching at Loyola University in 2006, where he now runs the saxophone department; he has written for the Saxophone Journal and performs on more than 100 recordings. From 2015 to 2018 he toured heavily with St. Paul & the Broken Bones, opening for the Rolling Stones, appearing on national talk shows, and jamming with Elton John and Philip Glass. Back home he gigs with the New Mastersounds, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, The Mishaps, Papa Mali’s Shantytown Underground, and the WWII Museum Victory Swing Orchestra.
With the Nightcrawlers he won a Grammy for Best Regional Roots Album (Atmosphere, 2020) — after an appearance on The Simpsons. As a sideman he has played with Aretha Franklin, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, Dr. John (the Grammy-winning City That Care Forgot and the Oscar-nominated “Down in New Orleans” from The Princess and the Frog), Harry Connick Jr., the Neville Brothers, the Temptations, and Anders Osborne, and his horn is on Maceo Parker’s last record, Soul Food. He has appeared in HBO’s Treme and the film Green Book, and is a D’addario Woodwinds artist. In 2023 he finally stepped out as a leader with Start It!, nominated for Best Contemporary Jazz Album in OffBeat’s Best of the Beat Awards, followed by The Journal Sessions (2025).
