Mark Infante is Flat Top Fontz

This Bio contains excerpts from an interview given to Robert Eddy, reporter\photographer for The Herald, Randolph, VT, March 26, 1992.

Mark Infante, alias Flat Top Fontz, began a fascination with pitch in time at the age of ten. On the first day of fifth grade, his teacher, an Accordion player, demonstrated the beauty and versatility of this free reed instrument to the class. Infante was smitten and couldn’t wait to get home to ask his parents for the $2.50 that the teacher told them it would require per student for a Hohner, Marine Band, Harmonica. That school year, the entire class of 32 ten-year-old students played the National Anthem every morning and seasonal songs as they came around, using the blow, draw by number method. This was not quite enough music for Mark, so extracurricularly he began to peck out melodies by ear.

He soon found that there were some songs that were more difficult if not impossible to accomplish on the Harmonica. Then came a day of revelation. It was on a Sunday while watching the Ed Sullivan Show. An act came on called Johnny Puleo and his Harmonica Gang, with little Johnny Puleo weaving through the legs of the other band members, all the while playing a large Harmonica with amazing dexterity and accomplishing all the notes of the chromatic scale. That was it. Mark just had to have one of those Chromatic Harmonicas, and a big one at that. It took several months of saving every penny he could make or find, but soon he amassed the $19 he needed to purchase his first four octave Hohner 64 Chromonica, thinking that the model was from the year that he bought it and not the number of reeds. Soon he was inspired to perform his music for the elderly in nursing homes and senior centers in and around his hometown of Milford, CT.

In his teen years, Mark returned to the diatonic Harmonica in order to emulate the great harmonica players that he heard, i.e. Little Walter Jacobs, James Cotton, Jimmy Reed, Magic Dick, Lee Oscar, and covered this material with the myriad of local CT Rock and Blues Bands that he performed with over the years.

His second decade brought renewed interest in playing the beautiful melodies of the standards he taught himself to play in his youth on the Chromatic, only now with more polish and proficiency. Never having formal Harmonica instruction Mark wanted to share what he had learned with others. Through the years he taught many how to play the harmonica, sometimes called the Mississippi Saxophone.

Mark moved to Vermont with wife Debra and daughter Sarah in 1990 and began performing inspirational music for the Tunbridge Congregational Church. Mark was approached by The Tunbridge Community Arts Association to teach Harmonica Workshops out of which developed The Green Mountain Harmonica Trio with Harold Smith on Double Bass Harmonica and wife Debra, (who had 10 years of formal Keyboard training), on the Chord Accompaniment Harmonica. After several performances that included some Classic Rock and Blues alongside Jazz Standards, Ethnic, and Seasonal music, Mark was tapped to join forces with the popular Central Vt. classic rock band Second Wind.

1995 found Mark back in CT with the all Harmonica, Trio Allegro, with wife Debra on Chord Accompaniment, Kevin B. Root on Double Bass, and occasionally daughter Sarah on percussion, Harmonica and Vocals. At this time he also joined forces with The Shark Pool Orchestra playing Jazz Standards, Rock`n Roll, Funk`n Soul. Also occasionally performing with Murry The Wheel http://murrythewheel.com, The Barrel House Boys, Gary Coppola of The Time Machine http://www.freewebs.com/timemachineblues , The Slam`in Band, The Billy Twyford Band, Snapper Blues among others.