Cosimo Matassa, the dean of New Orleans recording engineers and a beloved member of the music community, died today at about 2 pm in Oschner Hospital after a long illness. He was 88.

Cosimo Matassa. Credit: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

His granddaughter, Mia Matassa, reported that Mr. Matassa had had trouble breathing and he was admitted to the hospital earlier this week.

Both Allen Toussaint and Dave Bartholomew, a long-time friend and collaborator of Mr. Matassa, were with him last evening to pay their final respects.

Mr. Matassa was a fixture on the New Orleans music scene and received many awards and accolades, including induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2012, and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

He was the first recipient of OffBeat’s Lifetime Achievement in Music Business Award and has been written about extensively in OffBeat over its 27-year-history.

A self-made recording engineer who will go down in history as one of the most important parts of the 50s and 60s “New Orleans sound,” Mr. Matassa recorded basically everyone who was active during that time period – from Fats Domino to Little Richard and beyond.

Perpetually modest, Mr. Matassa summed up his recording process in a few brief sentences in a 2004 interview with Michael Hurtt called Cosimo Matassa: King of New Orleans Recording Engineers:

“It was simple. I’d stand in the studio and listen to the band and then go in the control room and make it sound like what I heard in the studio. So that was no big deal. But in the process I had to learn about microphones, how they really work, things like that. And I did.”

Visitation will be on Tuesday, September 16, at Lake Lawn Metairie, 5100 Pontchartrain Boulevard, beginning at 8:30 a.m.; a funeral Mass will be held at 3 p.m. Burial services are private.