Masaaki Saito

Masaaki Saito

Masaaki Saito is a bassist, composer and arranger based in Los Angeles.

Masaaki was born in Japan to a family of musicians. Having professional musicians as parents and being related to Kosaku Yamada, one of the most famous Japanese composers, it was quite natural for Masaaki to pick up an instrument at a very young age.

Masaaki's musical training started at the age of 3 with piano and classical guitar. 13 years old, he fully switches his instrument to electric bass. He graduated high school at Koyo School of Music & Dance.

Masaaki won "Berklee Award" as an outstanding student at "Groove Camp 2015" in Hokkaido. The year after receiving this award, he took the Berklee audition in Japan. He proceeded his musical study at the Berklee College of Music on a full tuition scholarship.

While he continued his studies at Berklee as a Jazz Composition and Performance major, he performed with Jazz legends such as, Kenny Werner, Jack DeJohnette, David Fiuczynski, Billy Kilson and Tiger Okoshi.

In 2019, Masaaki joined the recording of Jesus Molina album "Agape" with Mike Stern, Eric Marienthal, Antonio Sanchez and Randy Brecker.

Masaaki currently joins many recordings and live shows as a professional bassist. He tours globally with Multi Grammy/Latin Grammy winning singer Noel Schajris.
He also appears on Chinese television program "Campus Singer Coming" as a bassist for Junshu Zheng.