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Jazz Articles about Sasha Masakowski

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Album Review

Amina Figarova: Joy

Read "Joy" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Pianist Amina Figarova released an album in 2005 that was about as far away from the theme of “joy" as could be. September Suite (Munich Records) explored the deadly events of September 11, 2001 (she was in New York at the time; she experienced it). It is an album that she called: “An Ode to Mourning striving to articulate the various stages of grief in musical terms." In 2022 Figarova turns 180 degrees to embrace optimism and a ...

8
Album Review

Steve Masakowski and the Masakowski Family: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Read "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Holiday Music...with an edge. The holiday season always provides plenty of inspiration for musicians. Jazzers are especially affected, having produced many notable records, beginning, with the Vince Guaraldi trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas (Fantasy, 1965). That recording provides a convenient jumping off point for discussing the Masakowski Family's Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, which contains several performances derived specifically from that recording. The Masakowski Family is paterfamilias and guitarist Steve Masakowski (who discharges all arrangement ...

4
Bailey's Bundles

Seven Women (Plus Three) 2018 – Part X

Read "Seven Women (Plus Three) 2018 – Part X" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Lucia Jackson You and the Night and the Music Roni Music 2018 To a precious few, much talent is given, particularly the young of age, like New York City —native Lucia Jackson, who, at the age of 26 has already distinguished herself as an accomplished dancer and model. Now Jackson emerges as a singer, capitalizing on her voice and piano training at the prestigious Escuela de Musica Creativa in Madrid, Spain, where she attended on ...

4
Album Review

Masakowski Family: N.O. Escape

Read "N.O. Escape" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


The NOLA Masakowski's are a household name in the New Orleans area. Singer Sasha Masakowski has released several notable CDs including Sasha Masakowski & the Sidewalk Strutters Old Green River (Louisiana Music Factory, 2015); Hildegard (Self Produced, 2015); and Wishes (Hypersoul, 2011). Her father, the principle member here, multi-instrumentalist Steve Masakowski, is on faculty at the University of New Orleans, an educator under whom Katrina-refugee-now-Little-Rock-native Ted Ludwig studied. Bassist Martin Masakowski, Sasha's brother chips in with the one non-family member, ...

1
Album Review

Sasha Masakowski & the Sidewalk Strutters: Old Green River

Read "Old Green River" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


There is a rare musical triple point where talent, vision, and a wicked sense-of-humor meet. Damn few artists ever make it there. I believe that it must be the address of one Sasha Hildegard Masakowski. NOLA's own has recently relocated to the cultural hub of the universe, New York City, but not before navigating the choppy and often decadent waters of this past Carnival and Mardi Gras season to record a throwback to not the '30s and '40s but the ...

3
Album Review

Hildegard: Hildegard

Read "Hildegard" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


If audio releases were ships following one another and I was standing on the deck of Sasha Masakowski's debut recording, Wishes (Hypersoul, 2011), I don't think I could have seen as far away as needed to spy her follow-up Hildegard. Certainly not without a telescope. Like Wishes which Masakowski made with her ensemble, the Musical Playground, the artist inaugurates a new ensemble, Hildegard. The ensemble name is potent with meaning to the singer, whose middle name is Hildegard, and that ...

187
Album Review

Sasha Masakowski and Musical Playground: Wishes

Read "Wishes" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


The field of female jazz vocals is somewhat bigger than 40 acres...like, a universe bigger. So congested is the musical ether with this flavor of jazz that it is nearly impossible for an artist to carve out a useful niche. Not that a niche is necessary, but it is nice to have some unifying element or theme in a given project, something not unlike Karrin Allyson's Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane (Concord, 2001). While specifically directed in a different way, New ...


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