Home » Jazz Articles » Sasha Masakowski
Jazz Articles about Sasha Masakowski
About Sasha Masakowski
Instrument: Vocals
Related Articles | Concerts | Albums | Photos | Similar ToAmina Figarova: Joy
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 ...
read moreSteve Masakowski and the Masakowski Family: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
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 ...
read moreSeven Women (Plus Three) 2018 – Part X
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 ...
read moreMasakowski Family: N.O. Escape
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, ...
read moreSasha Masakowski & the Sidewalk Strutters: Old Green River
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 ...
read moreHildegard: Hildegard
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 ...
read moreSasha Masakowski and Musical Playground: Wishes
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 ...
read more