Ed Bickert, CM

Lyric Poet of Jazz Guitar



Biography
Discography
Hear Ed Play
First Memories of Ed Bickert
Or: how I came to dig him

Of all the artists featured here at my Secret Weapons site, Ed Bickert is probably the closest to being well-known -- most likely through his sessions with Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass, Rosemary Clooney, or his quartets with the late lamented Paul Desmond. Still, Ed is not the household name that, say, Oscar Peterson might be, and the Bickert name often doesn't ring any bells outside the jazz hardcore. (Despite his being awarded national honours in early 1997!)

For me, Ed has always been The Textbook, Archetypal Definition of what jazz guitar should sound like. (And a number of younger, mostly Canadian guitarists have felt the same at some point in their development, Lorne Lofsky and Sean Bray among them.) He's one of those few artists who I could literally listen to all day, and sometimes do. His warm legato tone, his lyricism, his economy of phrasing, and his uncanny, Monk-like ability to evoke complex harmonies with two or three well-chosen notes, have been a revelation for anyone I've ever shared him with. Hopefully new visitors to this page will feel the same when they're done.



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