J & M Studio: Making Musical Magic in New Orleans

Initially located in the back room of a music shop, J & M Studio moved twice en route to becoming the crucible of the New Orleans sound of the 1950s. Nearly all of the biggest hits by Fats Domino and Little Richard—as well as landmark records by Lloyd Price, Guitar Slim, and Clarence (“Frogman”) Henry—were recorded at J & M under the watchful eye of owner-engineer Cosimo Matassa. Many of those recordings were supervised by Dave Bartholomew, Robert (“Bumps”) Blackwell, or Paul Gayten and released on out-of-town labels (Imperial and Specialty in Los Angeles, Chess in Chicago). Bartholomew, a multitalented composer-arranger who had played trumpet for Duke Ellington, put together an outstanding house band that included saxophonists Lee Allen and Herb Hardesty and the influential drummer Earl Palmer. Working with minimal equipment and little separation between instruments, Matassa developed a distinctive, atmospheric sound that better-equipped studios could never replicate.