“They Were Just Neighbors”Cosimo Matassa and the New Orleans Sound

GEORGE DE STEFANO

“ITALIAN AMERICAN IDENTITY POLITICS”/ IASA

OCTOBER 3-5, 2013

Rock and Roll Hall of FameCosimo Matassa was inducted in 2012 at 86 and presented with the Award for Musical Excellence

Dave Bartholomew

The trumpeter, bandleader and arranger was Matassa’s closest collaborator and best friend

Allen Toussaint

“We all came through Cosimo”

Earl PalmerThe Tremé-born drummer, who invented rock’s straight-eighth backbeat, said, “I think Cosimo was a genius”

“We were integrated – we just didn’t know it”

Cosimo Matassa on growing up in the French Quarter

St. Joseph’s Day

African Americans and Italian Americans lived “cheek by jowl” in Matassa’s neighborhood and shared cultural traditions

Louis PrimaLike New Orleans’ native son Prima, Cosimo Matassa was born in the French Quarter to immigrants from Sicily

French Quarter, 1930s

“I came up as a small child during the Depression…”

-- Cosimo Matassa

Louis Armstrong

When Cosimo Matassa was a boy, he heard Armstrong and other great jazz and blues artists on the jukebox in his father’s saloon

Cosimo at the Controls

A small backroom at the J&M Music Shop became Matassa’s first studio

Joseph “Sharkey” Bonano

Bonano’s “Pizza Pie Boogie” was one of Matassa’s first recordings

Making History

In December 1949, Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew recorded “The Fat Man” in Matassa’s studio

“A Wop Bop a Loo Bop A Wop Bam Boom!”

Little Richard recorded “Tutti Frutti” and other hits at Matassa’s studio

“I’m a lonely boy…I ain’t got a home”Clarence “Frogman” Henry

The Cosimo Matassa Story, Vol. 1In 2007, Proper Records released a 4-disk boxed set comprising 120 recordings made at Matassa’s studios

Matassa’s Market

Today Cosimo’s sons run the family grocery store in the French Quarter

“The New Orleans Sound”

Matassa’s first studio was designated a historic landmark in 1999

Cosimo Matassa: American pop music wouldn’t be the same without him