Combining cool, modern harmonies with the hot drive of an earlier era, the French Café Quartet swings with a step that's buoyant and deep. Their warm, acoustic sound is both sophisticated and light-hearted, laid-back and cosmopolitan. With the easy, articulate alto of vocalist Mitzi Zilka blending with Eddie Parente's woody violin up front, these accomplished jazz players don't need a drum set to generate danceable grooves. Following the example of Django Reinhardt's gypsy jazz, they let the hot rhythm of Mike Doolin's guitar and John Keyser's bass do the driving. In fact, they designed their book with dancers in mind. Presenting classic swing, blues and ballads, they've calibrated their music for steps like West Coast Swing, Lindy hop, the Evening Two Step, Salsa, and the Waltz. No matter the beat, though, Zilka, Doolin, Parente and Keyser play with an easy swing feel. Whether you're young or young at heart, the French Café Quartet will make your step light and lilting. Listen to their swinging version of "It's Gotta Be This or That." Zilka sounds relaxed while smoothly propelling the lyric forward. Parente's elegant obbligatos weave around the voice, then extend into one of his beautifully constructed solos. Doolin's solid comping provides the drive. On "What a Difference a Day Makes," his clean single-note lines speak with soft authority as he and Zilka turn the pop ballad into a bluesy duet with refreshing swing. The distinctive texture of her understated alto lends depth to the generally upbeat lyrics, and Parente's violin always speaks with character. Lynn Darroch
Originally from Jersey City New Jersey, Eddie has lived in Boston Massachusetts where he played in a Mexican Mariachi Band, while studying Classical Indian Music with Tabla master Shashi Nayak, attending Irish Traditional Music sessions, and playing in an International folk dance band.
While living in North Carolina, Eddie (at that time known as "Skip") met, joined, recorded and toured extensively throughout the USA, Canada, England, Spain, with the Irish/Canadian/American Folk group Touchstone, having an album voted "Folk Album Of The Year"
Since moving to the Portland area he continues to play and record with a wide variety of musical groups, covering many styles. Some of his past and present associations include Portland State University Symphony Orchestra where he studied Violin with Artist in Residence Carol Sindell, Cascade Symphony Orchestra as Principal Violinist, Everything’s Jake Swing band with 2 CDs of Original music, the "legendary" Celtic Rock group The Full Shilling, 10 piece Western Swing Group Ranch Dressing, Cul An Ti (Celtic), Raven, a Celtic music group with 2 CDs of traditional and contemporary original music, the "Trail Band
" best described as an 8 piece folk orchestra with 5 CDs out, produced by Marv Ross (Quarterflash); The "Full House" Country band, David Valdez’s "Septeto Latino", to name a few. However, Jazz has always been his primary focus. He sites Saxophonist, composer and arranger Clif Waits, with whom he studied at Portland Community College as his primary mentor. Parente has also studied and played with pianist / composer Gordon Lee of the Mel Brown Quintet, Darren Clendenin, Saxophonist / Arranger Bob Newman and Bassist / Violinist Rob Thomas. Skip’s main influences: jazz violinists - Rob Thomas, Stuff Smith, Joe Venuti, Stephane Grappelli, Johnny Frigo and Svend Asmussen. But it was over 20 years ago, upon hearing trumpeter Donald Byrd for the first time, the composition "Ghana", from the "Byrd in Flight" Blue Note recording, that the true beauty and awesome force of Jazz irreversibly changed his life.
Eddie frequently travels to Russia, where he has performed in Krasnoyarsk (Siberia), and most recently, St. Petersburg and Moscow, performing his original music and collaborating with Saxophonist Oleg Kireyev and Guitarist Alexander Vinitsky. He has played 2 years in a row at Kaluga Jazz Festival (200km from Moscow), also several performances throughout the St. Petersburg International Jazz Festival. He has toured in many cites in Western Russia, playing in Philharmonic Halls in Beliki -Novgorod, Kazan, Ufa, Samara. He received continued Classical Violin training with Master violinist Tatyana Razomoava (Nevsky Quartet) in St. Petersburg during his visits. Eddie has performed at the well known St. Petersburg Jazz club "JFC
", smaller intimate clubs like "Sunduk", "Mukha", as well as the Grand Hotel Europe (St. Petersburg) and the Hotel Metropol in Moscow with pianist Nikita Bratus.Commenting on his recent travels Eddie states "Making friends is more important than anything but if you can make music with your friends, it is that much better!"
Eddie also has a new CD of his original Jazz and Latin compositions entitled "Touraco" available through www.CDBaby.com