Originally from Jersey City, NJ, Eddie Parente studied violin and four-part harmony at Jersey City State College and played in string orchestra while studying jazz with saxophonist Emile DeCosmo. Eddie also studied with violinist Julie Lyonn Lieberman in NYC and credits trumpeter Ted Curson, who held jam sessions in Hoboken and encouraged Eddie to play jazz in those formative years. In the early 1980s, Eddie lived in Boston, Massachusetts, where he played in a Mexican mariachi band while studying classical Indian music with tabla, attending Irish traditional music sessions, and playing in an international folk dance band. Upon moving to Portland in 1985, Eddie participated in Ron Steen’s jam sessions and studied and played with the great jazz violinist/bassist Rob Thomas. Since then, Eddie has played and recorded with a wide variety of musical groups. These days, Eddie is leading his own jazz quartet and plays in Mariachi Viva Mexico, a successful working mariachi group in the large and growing Latino community in the Pacific Northwest. Eddie has a CD of his original jazz and Latin compositions entitled Touraco and a CD entitled Quartet Jazz.
Interviewed by Raquel Paraíso, 08/31/2020.