Lifetime Achievement in Music Education: Steve Masakowski

Steve Masakowski never focused on making teaching his career.

- GERALDINE WYCKOFF

While attending Boston’s Berklee College of Music he earned a Professional Diploma rather than a degree in music education. When pianist/educator Ellis Marsalis offered him a full-time position in 1992 at the University of New Orleans, he remembers thinking, “Oh, I’ll give myself five years.” That, of course, was almost 30 years ago and the guitarist has gone on to become a full professor of jazz studies and holds the Coca-Cola Endowed Chair of Jazz Studies at the university.

“I basically learned by playing and of course I studied with some fantastic teachers like Hank Mackie,” Masakowski says. “I personally never really put much credence in degrees. At the time, it was more important for me to play with as many great musicians as possible. I feel that professional experience has been much more valuable in my career. From the bandstand is where most of my education came.”

That includes, of course, his decades with Astral Project that he joined in 1987. “I’m the junior member,” he adds with a laugh.

“My goal as a teacher is to turn out creative and productive individuals,” Masakowski says. “I love helping students discover who they are and finding their own path in music.”

Masakowski grew up in the last house on Magazine Street and recalls being able to listen to the Paul Crawford Jazz Band through his open window— the family’s home didn’t have to air-condition. As a kid, he had the opportunity to hear brass bands and marching bands as they rolled nearby. His home was often filled with music; his mother was a semi-professional vocalist who would sing around the house and play records.