Ed Bickert
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Edward Isaac "Ed" Bickert (born November 29, 1932) is a Canadian jazz guitarist. Youngest of his family, Bickert was born in Hochfield, Manitoba; his family (parents and 5 children) moved shortly after he was born to Vernon British Columbia. Although their primary ocuupation was in farming and orchards, where the children worked as well, his mother was a pianist, and father was a fiddler. Young Ed learned to play basic guitar chords from his sole older brother. On the weekends during the 1940s, he joined in with his parents playing at country dances. After high school, he worked briefly before driving across Canada to Toronto, Ontario with an aspiring writer friend, in 1952. He managed to establish himself in a few years, after a few non-playing jobs, and taking some formal guitar lessons, as guitar player for the leading jazz groups in Toronto.
By the sixties, he was a first-call studio musician, there, osmosis let him apply a respected musical sense and developing modern harmonic approaches from old fashioned sensibilities with pick and fingers.
Notable for his long association with the late Moe Koffman and Phil Nimmons' recordings, Bickert became a charter member of Rob McConnell's Boss Brass. Playing with the rare American musicians who employed Toronto rhythm sections in local gigs, Bickert married, and eschewing the road, stayed at home and raised a family of his own.
A friendship with renowned guitarist Jim Hall merited a recommedation to Hall's old acquaintance, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, who was looking for a band in the 1970s. Desmond quickly felt a rapport with Bickert , and bassist Don Thompson, who recorded some of their appearances in Toronto, with two different drummers. Desmond's enthusiasm for the guitarist's graceful choruses of chordal solos, and incomparable accompaniment gifts, forced him to record with Bickert state-side at Rudy Van Gelder's studio with top musicians Connie Kay on drums, and bassist Ron Carter — the album Pure Desmond was the result.
The guitarist's use of the solid-body Fender Telecaster especially sets him apart from his peers, as he attained a warm full tone, enriching the chords.
Bickert made a few LPs with Rosemary Clooney and other well-known artists through the 1980s and 1990s, as well as leading his own sessions. Unfortunately, in the mid 1990s, a fall caused some formidable injury to both of his arms. Bickert recovered, and continued to play and tour until his retirement in the early 21st century.
In 1996, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.
