Steve Masakowski - Family and Friends: Two Worlds
(Masakowski Music, 2026)
Guitarist Steve Masakowski is a cornerstone of New Orleans modern jazz, a Blue Note recording artist, and a long-time educator at the University of New Orleans. His 2026 album, Two Worlds, serves as a celebration of his 70th birthday and a showcase for the “Masakowski Family Band” comprising himself on guitar, vocalist/daughter Sasha Masakowski, bassist/son Martin Masakowski, Drummer Brian Blade, pianist Oscar Rossignoli, and saxophonist Rex Gregory.
Writers cite the Masakowski family in the same breath as the Ellis Marsalis family, both powerhouses on the New Orleans jazz scene. Along with the patriarch are: matriarch Ulrike Antonie Sprenger, who is a classically trained German pianist who met Steve while studying at Loyola University. There is his daughter, Sasha, an acclaimed vocalist and composer, born in 1986. Her style blends jazz, pop, and electronics, and she frequently tours internationally, and son Martin, a double bassist born in 1990. Martin is versatile across traditional and avant-garde jazz. He also designs custom basses as a luthier.
During his three-decade tenure as the Coca-Cola Endowed Chair of Jazz Studies at the University of New Orleans (UNO), Masakowski mentored many jazz luminaries, that include pianist Jon Cowherd, and guitarist Ted Ludwig (as well as his entire band on this recording).
Two worlds highlights two familial lineages: that of the Masakowski family and that of Steve Masakowski’s students. Both families inform this recording. Sasha Masakowski contributed her edgy jazz-pop chops to “Origin of Sin,” while Martin Masakowski provided his composition “Las Sonrisas del Mar” with its sensuous dollop of Latin Nouveu. “Sweet Dreams” is a gentle homage to the late Ellis Marsalis. Steve Masakowski, takes Marsalis’ original compostion adding the love and respect that it, and Mr. Marsalis, deserved.
If we all get what is coming to us, than this was overdue for Steve Masakowski.