Cardiff singer ready to take jazz world by storm

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, October 10, 2007 12:18 PM PDT ∞

It surely seems more a question of when Sacha Boutros becomes a famous jazz singer than it is a question of if.

Touted by jazz legend Red Holloway (who is performing with her at Anthology in San Diego on Tuesday) and backed on her soon-to-be-released debut CD not only by Holloway but also local heavyweights Bob Magnusson and Mike Wofford (who once upon a time backed a singer named Sarah Vaughan), along with Peter Sprague, Cardiff's Boutros seemingly has the confidence, training and the pure talent to make her way in the world as a jazz singer.

And, oh yeah: She works her butt off at it, too.

Efforts to reach her for an interview finally proved fruitful when she called last week on her cell phone ---- on the road from Paris to Brussels, where she was taking part in an international voice competition. (When your loyal correspondent learned that her cell phone company was charging her some $10/minute for the international call, the rest of the interview was conducted via e-mail.)

A native of San Diego County, and the daughter of a Lebanese father and a Mexican mother, Boutros wrote that her introduction to music came early.

"My first lesson: I remember it well; it was in the summer, June, I was 4. My grandmother took me to this lady, Cathy's, house ---- we had an appointment and the concern was that I was at least one year too young.

"The piano looked huge. They had to put a pillow under me. She played some notes and then I asked if I could play them back the way she had played them; I did it perfectly.

"My grandmother took me every week for lessons until the summer ended and kindergarten started. My father stopped my lessons when school started. He said that we did not have a piano and that is why he stopped them.

"I was really sad and cried for a long time ---- years. I loved music. It was not until my parents divorced that I began to play, at 13 until about 18 years old, with a lesson every week, then after that on and off with different lessons and teachers, studying classical music until about four years ago."

If her formal lessons came later than she would have liked, her discovery of her own vocal talents came even later.

"I never really knew I could sing until I was 20. I started taking classical voice lessons and am trained in bel canto. I am a soprano."

Beyond the training were the influences. Her parents' record collection. The Sergio Mendes and Beatles albums she bought at a thrift store. The Sinatra songs she heard on the radio. And the female singers who have inspired and shaped her: Maria Callas, Julie Andrews, Sarah Vaughan, Margaret Whiting, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, Edith Piaf were all on her list, punctuated with "anyone who sang Gershwin." She also wrote of buying imported CDs from Italy, France and Brazil, and of hushing her family so she could listen to Bach.

So with all those influences, where did the jazz focus come from?

"I love jazz ---- it makes me happy and it's challenging, beautiful and intellectual."

After cutting a demo CD six years ago, she began working on her first full-length CD. It is finished and, while she had hoped to get one of the jazz labels to pick it up, it wouldn't seem that patience is Boutros' strong suit.

"I am still shopping it a bit with some record labels, and Starbucks was interested, but the suspense and waiting for things to happen kill me.

"I would rather take the horse by the reins and put it out on my own label and make things happen, as I usually do."

Sacha Boutros with Red Holloway

When: 8 p.m. Oct. 16

Where: Anthology, 1337 India St., San Diego

Admission: $10-$30

Info: (619) 595-6300

Web: anthologysd.com or myspace.com/jazzsacha

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. Attempts to misrepresent your identity or impersonate any person will not be approved. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.