New Orleans guitarist Steve Masakowski performed with pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr. often over the years.
For a time, they had a duo gig at Tyler’s Beer Garden on Magazine Street, and Marsalis was the featured pianist on Masakowski’s 1991 album, “Friends,” with drummer Herlin Riley, saxophonist Rick Margitza, bassist Bill Huntington and pianist Mike Pellera.
When Marsalis retired as chair of the University of New Orleans’ Jazz Studies program, which he founded, Masakowski stepped into that role, a position he held until his own retirement in 2022.
So when Marsalis died in April 2020 — during the early days of the Covid pandemic — the Snug Harbor jazz club turned to Masakowski as well as his daughter, vocalist Sasha Masakowski, and son, bassist Martin Masakowski, for a tribute performance to the influential pianist. Among the songs in the beautiful set was “Sweet Dreams,” a piece Steve wrote for his “Friends” album, with new lyrics written by Sasha.
“I used to play that at Tyler’s with Ellis and just kind of put it on the shelf for many years now until after Ellis passed and I brought it out,” Steve says, “and Sasha did such a great job writing lyrics to it, put it into a whole new dimension.”
A new recording of “Sweet Dreams” now appears on the new Masakowski Family album, “Two Worlds,” which is out Friday, April 3. The meaningful, full-length jazz record features Steve, Sasha and Martin along with exceptional musicians and friends drummer Brian Blade, saxophonist Rex Gregory and pianist Oscar Rossignoli. Ulrike Maria Masakowski, Steve’s wife and Sasha and Martin’s mother, created the artwork for the album.
Those uncertain early days of the pandemic and the tribute to Marsalis left Sasha with a feeling of urgency, she says. Sasha, who also is a composer and electronic musician under the name Tra$h Magnolia, produced “Two Worlds.”
“I felt this kind of urgency of like, I want to document what we’re doing as a family right now,” Sasha says.
“Two Worlds” also gets to the heart of how music and heritage are passed down in New Orleans, from generation to generation, Sasha adds.
Steve, a celebrated guitarist and innovator, was mentored by Marsalis and Danny Barker and performed with James Black, Willie Tee, Earl Turbinton and other New Orleans greats. Sasha and Martin grew up surrounded by music — their mother also is a classical pianist — and became celebrated, innovative professional musicians themselves.
The Masakowskis have recorded together several times before, including the Nola Nova record “Wetland,” the 2017 album “N.O. Escape” and a Christmas record in 2019.
Further driving home the deep ties on “Two Worlds,” Blade, Gregory and Rossignoli each also studied with Steve.
The lyrics to “Sweet Dreams” are “kind of speaking of life after death. And do the ancestors have a way of knowing what the future holds for us?” Sasha says. “Tying it into this evolution of music and how it’s passed from generation to generation, but it still lives on with the elders who are no longer with us.”
“Two Worlds,” though, is a forward-looking record and made mostly of originals by Steve, Sasha and Martin. The group recorded the album at Marigny Studios with engineer Mack Major, and it was mixed by Mike Marciano.
The album opens with the title track, composed by Steve during the pandemic. The isolation inspired Sasha’s lyrics about “two young hearts” separating and living worlds apart.
Influences from Sasha’s work in electronic music also can be heard, especially in her vocal production and on her originals “Origin of Sin” and “Shine.”
“When I wrote ‘Shine,’ I was listening to a lot of Meshell Ndegeocello, who I think is one of the most brilliant producers, bassists, composers out there,” she says. “You kind of hear those undercurrents. And in using the voice as an instrument — on my electronic projects, I would use synthesizers, but on this project, there’s no synths, so what I do is use my voice to add these textures and these layers and add vocal pads.”
Similarly, Martin draws on his background playing and studying Eastern European and Middle Eastern styles for his song “Las Sonrisas del Mar.” The rhythm is based on the jurjunah rhythm, an Iranian groove, Martin says, along with influences from Armenian pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan.
“The real benefit of growing up here, and maybe with this household in particular, is the concept of finding your own sound and not having a direct set of rules to follow,” Martin says. It’s “the idea of playing music and developing your own sound and having the creativity drive you forward.”
The sole non-original on “Two Worlds” is a piece written by New Orleans drummer James Black, “A Love Song.” Sasha also wrote new lyrics for the recording.
Steve played with Black quite a bit before he died in 1988, including in Steve’s experimental, electronic jazz project Mars. That project also featured Lawrence Sieberth on keys and bassist James Singleton.
Black “was an amazing musician. He also played trumpet, piano, [and] he was a great composer. There’s a lot of his compositions that are in the ‘Silverbook’ that Harold Battiste put together,” Steve says. “The only recording of [‘A Love Song’] that I know of is one David Torkanowsky did.”
“‘Love Song’ is one of the most beautiful ballads,” Sasha adds. “The chords are intricate and the melody is so beautiful … It just kind of shows the level of depth and musicality that James Black had. We wanted to record that and keep this song alive.”
Sasha and Martin care deeply about their family’s and the city’s musical heritage, but honoring tradition doesn’t mean being stuck in place, says Sasha, who has worked with boundary-pushing artists like Nicholas Payton and Zach Danziger.
“The pulse of music right now is on this kind of experimentation between jazz music and electronic music and pop and R&B and hip-hop,” she says.
“The tradition of New Orleans modern jazz greats is you’re pushing the music forward,” Sasha adds. “You’re constantly innovating. You’re constantly reinventing the wheel. You’re exploring as every artist should.”
The Masakowski Family & Friends will perform Thursday, April 30, at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. They play an album release concert at 7 p.m. Friday, May 1, at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. Find more at steve-masakowski.com.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nola.com ’
