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“They Were Just Neighbors”Cosimo Matassa and the New Orleans Sound
GEORGE DE STEFANO
“ITALIAN AMERICAN IDENTITY POLITICS”/ IASA
OCTOBER 3-5, 2013
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Rock and Roll Hall of FameCosimo Matassa was inducted in 2012 at 86 and presented with the Award for Musical Excellence
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Dave Bartholomew
The trumpeter, bandleader and arranger was Matassa’s closest collaborator and best friend
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Allen Toussaint
“We all came through Cosimo”
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Earl PalmerThe Tremé-born drummer, who invented rock’s straight-eighth backbeat, said, “I think Cosimo was a genius”
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“We were integrated – we just didn’t know it”
Cosimo Matassa on growing up in the French Quarter
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St. Joseph’s Day
African Americans and Italian Americans lived “cheek by jowl” in Matassa’s neighborhood and shared cultural traditions
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Louis PrimaLike New Orleans’ native son Prima, Cosimo Matassa was born in the French Quarter to immigrants from Sicily
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French Quarter, 1930s
“I came up as a small child during the Depression…”
-- Cosimo Matassa
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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
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Cosimo at the Controls
A small backroom at the J&M Music Shop became Matassa’s first studio
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Joseph “Sharkey” Bonano
Bonano’s “Pizza Pie Boogie” was one of Matassa’s first recordings
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Making History
In December 1949, Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew recorded “The Fat Man” in Matassa’s studio
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“A Wop Bop a Loo Bop A Wop Bam Boom!”
Little Richard recorded “Tutti Frutti” and other hits at Matassa’s studio
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“I’m a lonely boy…I ain’t got a home”Clarence “Frogman” Henry
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The Cosimo Matassa Story, Vol. 1In 2007, Proper Records released a 4-disk boxed set comprising 120 recordings made at Matassa’s studios
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Matassa’s Market
Today Cosimo’s sons run the family grocery store in the French Quarter
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“The New Orleans Sound”
Matassa’s first studio was designated a historic landmark in 1999
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Cosimo Matassa: American pop music wouldn’t be the same without him