Antonio has many years of experience as an accomplished guitar player. He is an avid fan of many of the great guitarists, including Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and B. B. King.
As is evident by his playing, he considers Carlos Santana his main influence. Antonio began playing guitar with the assistance and guidance of Gerald Willis, a teacher at Fairview Middle School in Gonzales. in the Salinas Valley of Monterey County, California.
He later joined various local bands like Touch, Breeze, and The Marquis. Shortly thereafter, he
moved to San Jose and attended San Jose State University where he continued classes in music including theory and jazz improvisation. While playing a guitar that he could only hope to
one day own while on a momentous trip to Guitar Showcase in San Jose, Where he was approached by Jimmy Sabala to join his group Libre. It covered about 25 Santana songs and several well known Latin rock classics by Malo and El Chicano.
It was in this group that he met Edward Villalba of Mystique who was the lead vocalist and Ernesto Angulo who was the timbalero for Libre at the time.
In 1980, Antonio joined the group Mainsqeeze, a ten piece band that did all the classic horn band tunes from the likes of Tower of Power, Average White Band, Ohio Players and many others. In this group, Antonio improved and solidified his strong rhythm guitar skills backing up a tremendous horn section composed of Charles and Rolf Ferchau, John Bermudez and Doug Max.
It was through the great saxophonist Rolf Ferchau that Antonio began to appreciate and learn of all the great saxophonist like John Coltrane, Grover Washington Jr. and John Klemmer. It was
through john Bermudez, a former member of the Santa Clara County Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps that he learned to appreciate the discipline necessary to play complicated rhythms with
many percussionist. This band played many events in and around Santa Clara County and other Bay Area venues. In addition, this band went on to back up Reed Evans in his tribute to "Elvis" that allowed Antonio to learn many of "Elvis" classic tunes.
In 1999, Antonio joined a local Santana tribute band and played at local venues for several years. In 2005 when a few members of the band left for various reasons, Antonio started the band Zebop!
and asked the remaining members of the previous band, Steven Vasquez, Ernesto Angulo, and Art Padilla to contribute to Zebop! a tribute to Santana.
In the last few years, Antonio has dedicated himself to improving the tribute to include songs from as much of the Santana discography as possible.
Antonio Marquez
His guitars include:
1995 Paul Reed Smith, Santana I model limited edition # 33
2005 Paul Reed Smith, Santana II
Fender Stratocaster Jeff Beck model.
Yamaha Classic Acoustic Guitar CGX171CCA
Guitars ran through a 1977 Mesa Boogie amplifier custom made for him by Randall Smith
at Mesa Engineering, Petaluma CA.
This custom amplifier is now referred to as a Mark I and includes, two way extension speaker cabinets each with a 12" Altec 417 8H Series II speaker.
Guitar strings; D' Addario with gauges .009 - 042
His Yamaha features a solid cedar top with cutaway and a B-band preamp system with adjustable condenser microphone and piezo pick up. The Yamaha is mounted on Gracie Guitar stand.
Guitar strings: D' Addario classical guitar strings
Antonio uses Jim Dunlop Jazz II guitar picks but on rare occasions will use a Fender heavy
triangular pick.
His pedal board contains a Vox Wah Wah Boss TU12 tunner Boss digital delay (DD-5) and a Boss
Chorus Ensemble (CE-5). All are connected to each other and to the Mesa Boogie with Monster
Cables. The Boogie is miked with a Shure SM57 microphone.
