Gloucester Alumni

Gloucester Daily Times 1-6-07

Paul Frontiero, a Gloucester High School graduate of 1950, has found a new career after retirement.

After high school, he earned an engineering degree from Brown University and a MBA from Duke University, followed by a long career in product development at IBM in New York and North Carolina.

When he retired in 1996 while on a visit to his hometown of Gloucester, his aunt Pauline Piscitello, brought down his old trombone, which he had given to the family to use.

He dusted off the instrument, stored in the attic, which had not been used for probably about 40 years.

"I decided to learn to play it this time," Frontiero said in an telephone interview from his home in Raleigh, N.C. "In high school, I played in the band, but I was not the player I wanted to be. So I decided to take some lessons."

While at Gloucester High, he was a member of the National Honor Society, a Sawyer Medal recipient, a senior class officer, a captain in the Junior ROTC and drum major of the band under "Maestro" Tony Gentile.

Along the way in his new chosen path, Frontiero said he studied under trombone greats Phil Wilson at Berklee College of Music, Steve Turre at Stanford Jazz Institute and Scott Hartman at Tanglewood Music Center.

Those lessons turned into another college degree with Frontiero recently earning a music degree from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

In North Carolina, he performs with two concert wind ensembles and directs and performs in his own band "Who's Your Daddy," featuring what Frontiero calls "sassy, brassy jazz." Frontiero is a participant at the Brass Chamber Music Workshop at Humboldt State University at Arcata, Calif.

Frontiero, a father of four children, has many family members on Cape Ann, including Virginia McKinnon, Alfred Piscitello, Frances Piscitello, Augustine Piscitello, Antoinette Piscitello, Mildred Gentile, Rosario Gentile, Pauline Piscitello, Sally Piscitello, William Frontiero, Lil Frontiero, all of Gloucester, and Florence Doucette of Manchester and Mary Ann Beaton and Ida Doane of Essex. Frontiero resides in Raleigh and can be reached at frontier@email.unc.edu.

On his summer visits, he always takes part in a Fourth of July celebration at a block party in Beverly, where one of his children lives.

"I lead the band of little children where they march with their kazoos," he said. "I have done this ever summer for the past 10 years, ever since I took up trombone again."