The Eddie Parente will play Saturday from 3:45 to 4:45pm!

Don't miss the 40th Annual Cathedral Park Jazz Festival! Click here to access the Twitch online live streaming of this performance!

Originally from New Jersey, Eddie has lived in Boston, Mass. Where he played in a Mexican mariachi band while studying Classical Indian Music with table master Shashi Nayak, attending Irish Traditional Music sessions, and playing in an international folk dance band.  

"My mother started me on piano when I was five. This lasted for a couple of years, but I was more interested in the guitar, my father’s instrument. His Fender Stratocaster was just too irresistible. He soon gave me my first electric guitar, the coolest thing in the world at that time. He taught me to play and we would “jam” together.

My friends and I would form garage bands and play the music of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin, Rolling Stones, Santana, and other popular music of the time. I wish I had recordings of these “garage” performances! We even played local parties and dances.

One day, at a rehearsal in the basement at Drummer, Steve Lange’s house, I put down my guitar and picked up an instrument case that was lying in the corner. It appeared to be a violin case. I opened it up and inside was a beautiful stringed instrument and a bow. Despite that it only had three strings, I began to tune it, somehow instinctively in Perfect 5ths, tightened the bow and played “Willie the Pimp”, a Frank Zappa tune, as played by blues violinist “Sugarcane” Harris. My bandmates seemed to be pleased (who knows what they really thought!) and Steve offered to let me keep it if I would take good care of it. This instrument turned out to be a very nice Viola (Larger and deeper than a violin) but at the time I had never seen one up close, much less played one. So, my first bowed string instrument is actually the viola, and to this day, I still play the viola and continue to be more attracted to its deeper tone."

-- Eddie Parente