On June 26th, we'll time-travel back to the future of the early 1980s in New Orleans, when a young guitarist, Steve Masakowski, premiered what would become one of the innovations that cemented him as one of the city's great inventors: his hand-made key-tar. Masakowski's new instrument though, was not the "keyboard on a strap" - mass-produced by Moog and popularized by artists like Herbie Hancock and Prince - that most of us think of today when we hear the term "keytar."  Steve's key-tar was still a guitar at heart, but reconstructed with his own cutting edge bespoke midi technology, at his house in New Orleans, incorporating electronics into the string instrument in a new way.

One of Steve's musical peers, Lawrence Sieberth, was also experimenting with new synthesizer keyboards coming out at the time, so Steve formed a band with Lawrence, the now late great rhythm reinventor James Black on drums, multi-instrumentalist James Singleton on bass, and a rebel crew of other exploratory musician friends.

They called the band MARS and focused on original music influenced by the early evolving electronic instruments and composers of the day. They recorded and released an LP simply entitled “Mars” in 1982 that featured other prominent jazz musicians that Steve was collaborating with, including Dave Liebman on sax, Ricky Sebastian on drums (who was also playing with the raucous Jaco Pastorius at the time), Patrice Fisher on harp, and Kent Jordan on flute. During the 1980s, the band would frequently present concerts with visual artist John Graubarth.

In 2023, MARS reunited for the first time in years, and tonight, four of the band's original members reunite once again, for one night only, for "Mars Revisited," featuring some of the music performed by the original group with Ricky Sebastian substituting for the late, great James Black on drums. And yes, Steve's enigmatic handmade key-tar will be there, making a rare appearance.

MARS REVISITED features:

‍Steve Masakowski - 7-string guitar, electric key-tar

Lawrence Sieberth - synthesizer keyboards

James Singleton- bass

Ricky Sebastian - drums

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‍Shows at 7:30pm & 9:30pm

‍Doors at 7:00pm & 9:00pm

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Restaurant is Open 5pm - 10pm for dinner before or after your showtime: Advance Ticket Holders can now automatically make dinner table reservations for the Dining Room online via OpenTable.com