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NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – He is the frontman of his own band, and sideman to generations of great jazzmen around the world.  He is also an educator of new stars in the jazz world, and a member of the longest running contemporary jazz group in New Orleans, Astral Project.  Yes, it’s guitar master Steve Masakowski.

Masakowski is homegrown, and first heard the music in his Uptown neighborhood, “My first recollection of hearing music was of course my mother singing around the house,” Masakowski said. “But I would go on the porch and two houses down was the Paul Crawford Traditional Jazz Band, and they would practice, and I would go out there, and I think I had a kazoo trumpet, and I would pretend I was jamming with them, you know.”

A guitar and lessons followed not long after and Steve was on his way.  He began to get serious about the guitar, and after a stint at the Berkley School of Music, he made the fateful decision to come back to New Orleans to master his craft by playing with the best from James Black, to Ellis Marsalis, to Red Tyler, and more.

Masakowski says,  “When I first got out of Berkley a lot of the younger musicians were saying we need to go to New York, and I was like I want to go New Orleans. I wanna go home, which was a really good decision for me in hindsight because it gave me the opportunity to play with all these great musicians and an opportunity to develop in a different way.”

Today Steve is a professor of music at University of New Orleans, initially brought on by Ellis Marsalis, and he’s helping to mold a new generation of jazz stars at a program making a name for itself.

“We have a very successful program. We attract students from all round the world, and really great players, and we try to hold on to the legacy that Ellis started there,” according to Masakowski.

Speaking of legacy, Steve and his wife, classical pianist Ulrike have given us a pretty neat musical legacy in son Martin, and daughter Sasha.  Martin plays with his band in Europe, and Sasha is a jazz singer, often heard around town with her band.

According to Masakowski, “I never insisted my kids go into music. My wife is a pianist, and of course they heard music all their lives, and I think that they saw a sense of joy of playing music, they’ve become really great in their own right and they have their own separate careers, and it’s really amazing.”