R&B Origins — Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio

At 840 N. Rampart, in a storefront that measured nothing grand, Cosimo Matassa ran J&M Studio starting in 1945 and cut the records that invented rhythm and blues. Fats Domino recorded here. Little Richard recorded here. Ray Charles recorded here. Professor Longhair recorded here. The sound they made—piano-forward, horn-punctuated, drum-heavy—became the template for every R&B record that followed. New Orleans had been a trading hub for more than a thousand years before the French founded it in 1718, a city built where the portage between Bayou St. John and the Mississippi River gave access to Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf beyond. By the 19th century it was the largest port in the South, exporting cotton and farm products to Europe and New England, the biggest city in the region when the Civil War began. That convergence—of rivers, trade routes, people, and the cultures they carried—made New Orleans the place where American music crossed over into something new. What Matassa recorded wasn't an accident of talent. It was the sound of a city that had always been a place of many tongues. The building is a National Historic Landmark. It's private now. The plaque on the exterior marks where the recording booth was. You stand outside and know what happened in that room.