Edward Walter Larkosh

Ed Larkosh, teacher, artist, and jazz musician, passed away peacefully at his home in East Providence, R.I., on March 14, 2021, with his son Dan Larkosh and his grandson Oliver Larkosh at his side.

Ed was born on March 2, 1936, in Pawtucket, R.I. He liked to joke that he was born at home so he could be near his mother. He was one of four children in a family of first-generation Polish and French-Canadian immigrants. His father was employed as a tile cutter; his mother worked in a shoelace factory.

Ed began playing the drums in grade school, and by the age of 16 he was a professional jazz drummer. After graduation from North Providence High School in 1953, “Fast Eddy” Larkosh and his steady beat became fixtures on the Providence jazz scene. By day, Ed also attended the Rhode Island College of Education, where he pursued a teaching degree. Ed later transferred to Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Conn., where he met his future wife, Dorothy Ann Lenotti, and earned a bachelor of science degree.

After finishing his draft stint in the U.S. Army, Ed came to Martha’s Vineyard for the first time to play a drumming gig at the Edgartown Yacht Club in 1963. As the parents of two baby boys, Ed and Dorothy thought the Vineyard “would be a good place to raise a family.” Soon thereafter, Ed gained employment as the director of the Island Craft Center in Vineyard Haven, and he moved to the Island with his family.

The first jazz group Ed joined on the Island consisted of Dave Whittemore on piano, Art Sylvia on bass, and Orbie Tower on the tenor sax — the first of many ensembles that Ed would promote as the “the Local Band.” Other featured members of the group were Edson Rogers and Ed Wise.

Ed’s first teaching job on Martha’s Vineyard was as a traveling science teacher for the whole Island. His classroom was contained in an 18-wheel semi rig called the “Travel Lab,” which he drove from school to school, having obtained a Class 1 license in order to drive it. This fully equipped classroom contained a laboratory and a planetarium; it was exciting and fun for the schoolchildren to have their science lessons in the “Travel Lab.”

In 1969, Ed took a one-year position as vice principal of the high school at Collegio Nueva Granada in Bogota, Columbia. On the weekends he would take his sons to the bullfights; at night, Ed and Dorothy would host faculty and friends at dinner parties, entertained by the local street musicians Ed had encountered while exploring the city.

After Ed and his family returned to the Island in 1970, Ed founded a stained glass studio in an old bungalow on Union Street in Vineyard Haven. At one time in the 1970s and ’80s, many windows on Main Street displayed one of Ed’s handcrafted stained-glass windows. The lobby of the Martha’s Vineyard National Bank featured Ed’s magnum opus, a stained glass rendition of the Gay Head Cliffs that was also a postcard sold in bookstores and souvenir shops.

Ed continued his career as a jazz drummer, accompanying Jeremy Berlin, Jimmy Burgoff, and Lenny Yancey as a member of the Tisbury Jazz All-Stars. In the early 1980s, the group opened for such jazz luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Williams, Dave Brubeck, and Ramsey Lewis at a series of jazz concerts performed at the Hot Tin Roof. The band was also featured in Variety magazine.

In the 1980s, Ed founded a company, Educational Developments, with the slogan “Dedicated to the joy of learning.” Ed designed, manufactured, and marketed a “musical decoder,” which was a tool for teaching, studying, and understanding the structure and relationships among musical chords and keys.

An avid bicyclist, for many years Ed rode a Bianchi racing bike; later, he could be seen all over the Island on his recumbent bicycle. He always wore his own custom-made T shirts that featured his slogans like “My road too” and “Bike off.” He advocated for the right of cyclists to safely share the road with automobiles for many years.

Ed Larkosh was not a powerful man, but he always stood up for what mattered: his family, art, beauty, justice, and the like. He didn’t make a big splash, but his pebbles created many ripples. For example, when Eddie lived in Hillside Village in Vineyard Haven during the 1990s, he decided that he didn’t like the bright red color of his front door. (The doors were all painted a uniform shade of red for safety reasons.) Ed decided to paint his door hunter green, without asking the landlord’s permission. But the residents all agreed the red doors were ugly, and Ed’s hunter green door looked much nicer. If you go to Hillside Village today, you’ll see that every door is painted hunter green. Many other details in the circles in which Ed traveled were changed and improved because of him.

The American poet and musician Sidney Lanier once wrote, “Music is love in search of a word.” Ed’s mode of expression was his art and his music. Music in particular was a true language for Ed to express complex feelings and emotions. Eventually Ed transitioned away from the drums in favor of the chromatic harmonica as his preferred musical voice. After playing a stationary and cumbersome instrument for his whole life, Ed finally had a portable mode of musical expression. He carried his chromatic harmonica everywhere; it was with him at virtually all times. Ed would often spontaneously reach into his coat pocket, bring out “Hot Lucy” (as he called his harmonica), and perform to the delight of audiences and passers-by. He also gave lessons.

Ed was a minimalist before that was a thing. He never cared for material possessions or financial success. Ed never made a lot of money playing the jazz chromatic harmonica, but he very much enjoyed playing it for the remainder of his music career. He did it to express his feelings and emotions “in search of a word,” and because it was his way to make people happy. Ed was a true original, an Island character. He had an irreverent sense of humor. He had his own unique flair and sense of style. He rose beyond his circumstances. He always continued his study and love of history, music, literature, art, and astronomy. Ed was very intelligent, but never pompous.

Ed moved from the Island to the Residence at Cedar Dell in North Dartmouth in 2010. In his later years, Ed just loved road trips to Deer Isle, Maine, to visit his sister Anne, traveling with his sons, movies, sporting events, music (of course), discussing politics and current events, and hearty meals shared with friends and family. He returned to the Vineyard frequently, and particularly enjoyed spending birthdays and holidays with his grandsons Oliver and Xavier.

Anyone who ever knew Ed also knows that there were few things he loved more than a good conversation over a cold beer. He was a true bon vivant. In 2011, shortly after leaving the Vineyard, Ed wrote this little tribute to his past:

The Old Times

Mishin’ some mash,
Talkin’ some trash,
Spoofin’ an’ joshin’,
finger poppin’,
lolly gaggin’,
an’ carryin’ on.

A funeral Mass at St. Augustine’s in Vineyard Haven was held in 2021. Ed is buried at the Oak Grove Cemetery in Oak Bluffs with his ex-wife, Dorothy Larkosh Roberts, and his son, Christopher Edward Larkosh, who both predeceased him. He was also predeceased by his brother Jim Larkosh and his sister Edna Davenport. Ed is survived by his son, Daniel James Larkosh, his son’s wife, Judit, his grandsons Oliver and Xavier of West Tisbury, and his sister Anne Burton of Deer Isle, Maine.