Joe Macaluso plays his trumpet for fellow Knights, Council 12906, St. Peter Church, Covington, LA

Joe Macaluso plays his trumpet for fellow Knights, Council 12906, St. Peter Church, Covington, LA
Macaluso was born March 10, 1928 in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, the second of three sons. His parents were Italian immigrants Nicholas J. Macaluso Sr. of Contessa Entellina and Frances Mary Calabrese of Giuliana, Sicily. The family owned a grocery and seafood market, as was common for many Italian immigrant families of the time.

He started trumpet lessons in the early 1930s after receiving his first Regent-brand trumpet, bought at Werlein's. With that trumpet came eight free lessons at All State Band, a local music venue owned by noted cornetist Johnny Wiggs. Later, lessons were taken with a local black Creole trumpeter, Manuel Manetta. The charge was 50 cents per lesson and it has been stated that, when the assignment was completed, the lesson was over, no time limit.

Macaluso attended local schools in Algiers, New Orleans, including Martin Behrman High School and Belleville Elementary, and later St. Aloysius High School in New Orleans, where he was a band member for four years under the direction of Professor Taverna, composer of the school's fight song.[citation needed] During this time, he also had private lessons with New Orleans musician, Salvadore Castigliola. During his college years, he studied with another local great, George Jansen, who was widely regarded[by whom?] as one of, if not the, best music teachers in all of New Orleans. Jansen was also well-known as one of the rare teacher in those days who would accept both white and black students without question.

Macaluso graduated from Loyola University in New Orleans with a bachelor's degree in music in 1951 and later a master's degree in counseling and guidance. He then received a Ph.D. in educational administration, supervision and management from the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. During WWII, he was a Yeoman 3rd Class in the U.S. Coast Guard and was stationed in San Pedro, California and New London, Connecticut.