When it comes to backstories, Mai Leisz’s reads more like a fairytale than it does a musician bio. Add in a storybook romance straight out of a Hollywood movie and a surreal supporting cast, and that’s her life in a nutshell. Born in the tiny village of Leisi, Estonia with a population of 200, Leisz was sheltered from popular music due to regulations from the post-Soviet regime of the time. When she started playing the bass at 16 she was exposed to jazz through her music teacher’s guidance. As she gained more access to American jazz and pop music, Mai found tremendous influence in the playing of Jaco Pastorius, Gary Willis, Jimmy Johnson, Carol Kaye, and her first bass teacher Raul Vaigla. After moving away to Sweden to continue her bass studies, her bass was her only solace, until the moment that changed everything. It was a day in June 2015 when everything was going wrong for Mai, as she took the wrong metro on her way to busk in the streets of Stockholm with her friend Doug Seegers, then wandered down the wrong road and ended up in an unfamiliar place. When she finally pulled out her bass to start playing, it started to rain. During those 10 minutes, someone who would play a significant role later in her life walked by and heard her soulful bass playing. The man turned out to be renowned multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz (Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, John Mayer), who was in town performing with Jackson Browne. Mai was invited to sit in with Jackson’s band the next day, whose bass chair was being occupied by Bob Glaub. She obliged and excitedly made her way to the sold-out venue for the most important performance of her life. “I was so nervous. I couldn’t believe where I was, and I had to focus so hard on making sure I knew the chords and all of the changes — but I couldn’t keep my eyes off Greg, and I kept checking to see if he was staring at me, too. He was.” Greg played on MaiGroup’s second album You [2015] and gave a copy to David Crosby, telling him he would love the bass player. A couple of weeks later Mai got an email from Crosby who asked if she would like to play on his upcoming album, Sky Trails [2017, BMG], which led to her becoming his touring bass player. As Mai and Greg were falling deeply in love, Mai took another leap of faith, packed her things and headed to America. It was there that she met and sat in with such music icons as Joan Baez, David Foster, and Seal. In her downtime from touring with Crosby, Leisz was able to focus on her own band, MaiGroup, which just released its latest album, Metamorphosis. The beautiful jazz-fusion-meets-singer–songwriter record features a slew of famous collaborators along with Mai’s lyrical fretless playing and smooth lines. Her ethereal soloing on “Monarch,” “Gregory,” and “Metamorphosis” shows just how heavy of a player the once small-town girl has become. And like every good story full of ups and downs, unexpected twists, conflict, and peril, Mai has eme