On my first of since annual visits to NOLA (in local parlance) … I got a lucky tip to catch Sasha Masakowski singing with a band led by her father, noted jazz guitarist and teacher in NOLA, Steve Masakowski. The 300 Club on Bourbon in the French Quarter may be gone, but the exquisite jazz that night I heard, sung so clearly, joyously by Sasha … has led to a long love affair with her musical gifts. She’s a premier young “lioness” of the NOLA jazz scene, and has performed from NYC to Russia to China.
Just read this review I did of her second album, Wishes, for cdbaby.com-
“Wonderful “Wishes” Comes True …”
Sasha has made an adventurous, striking second album, full of a worldly range of her musical Wishes, expressed in personal lyrics about life’s paradoxical twists & turns. The title song starts off frisky & lively, as she boldly & humbly declares “we are beautiful people … we are incredibly wise … we are filled with delusions … each one a reflection of life”. Her natural, melodic scatting, one with & over the piano, grabs the ear, before the sonic backdrop richly rises almost symphonically in the chorus.
“Yours: A Love/Hate Letter to my Hometown” is imbued with a warm sincerity in her voice with a plush cushion of vibes, as she airs out her feelings about the gains & pains in New Orleans, sketching out intriguing lines like “tainted beauty, paint me with the colors of your song”.
She boldly takes on the venerable “St. James Infirmary”, parading out over a martial beat over plaintive piano notes, colored with some wild, high scatting. Besides the rich cribbed Cab Calloway-colored chorus “… hi dee hi dee hi dee hee, he’ll never find no one like me”, get ready for this famous fatal, final scene- “now when I die, please lay my body in Versace from head to toe, so when they close my golden casket, in style they’ll see me go … six poker dealers for my pallbearers … with a red-hot band playing all my music, raising hell as we go”.
Her sweet voice with just her Dad Steve Masakowski’s elegant guitar work on “Falling Leaves” & “Tacea Le Notte Placida” are an irresistable match that produces simply spare, beautiful music. Let’s hope there’s a future album of merely Masakowski pere & fille- a pure musical family affair.
Sasha really grows and glows on “E Preciso Perdoar”, a Brazilian standard she also put on her “Musical Playground” debut album. She used smooth overdubbed, self-hamonizing on that album, but she comes in close here with an intimate tone, starting out with some free-wheeling scatting before moving confidently into the lush Latin number. While the musical tapestry gradually appears tastefully behind her, Sasha grabs your ear whenever she so freely and joyously scats onto higher ground.
“Pieces of You” is a very personal relationship ending, and album-closing bookend to the opening “Wishes”. Her bluesy vocal opening over a single-note piano is so compelling … “so you should ask if it’s you that I love, well I couldn’t tell you enough … how hard it is to admit that it’s over now”. Once the band fully kicks into full stop-start tempo, the chorus lays out the rise and the fall … “pieces of you are beautiful and I’m dreaming … but dreams are a scheme, for beauty is so misleading”.
Album producer James Westfall’s piano solos on “Pieces …” and throughout are first rate, full of fleet fingering, in colorful flourishes without being excessive. His clean, airy production allows Sasha’s rich, supple voice to be complimented nicely by her young, talented quartet. And if I may take a piece out of “Pieces of You” … my ears can’t wait to love the sounds of Sasha’s precious spirit in all its musical mysteries in the future.
TimMusic- “I don’t fear the words and sounds … just try holding them close to my heart” 