Claude Ranger was (is?) such a fantastic drummer. Ed Bickert makes such beautiful and concise statements. Ranger's story is on par with 'this is spinal tap' drummer mysteries. Careful, he might jump out of the bushes one day with drum sticks.
Ed to me looks somewhat like a handsome lumberjack, while being one of the most imaginative and gentle players on the guitar I've ever heard, a magician with his preference for very personal irradiant chords.
In Toronto, Paul Desmond with Ed in his trio definitely created some songs of overwhelming lyrical beauty and perfection.
The drummer is Claude Ranger (rahn-zhay'), a great player who seems to have disappeared -- literally. No one knows if he's still alive!
It's amusing to read the comments that keep referring to Ed's equipment. I know him, and doubt if he ever thought about that other than to have something in his hand to make music...
@SmelOdies Bill Frisell also used a tele with round wounds. It all depends on that sound that you're craving.
Yes the sound is in the fingers, but also in the guitar. The tele has a bright jangly sound that lends it's self to a certain sound, regardless what genre it's played in. I play a Eastman with 13 round wounds because I love out acoustic jazz ala Eddie Lang and the such. I couldn't play acoustic passages like Howard Alden (No Amps Allowed Record) with a tele, but that's not my sound.
Bickert and Thompson are da bomb. In a world of crash, bash, it's wonderful to have musicians at a cold late night fireside intimacy making excellent music.
Amazing playing, but the awkwardness of the lady in the background at 2:15 caught my attention. I think, like most people, she didn't care for the bass solo too much.
Flippin' fantastic. Ed Bickert was the reason I bought a Tele. I was pretty happy playing the usual archtop until I heard the man. Awesome guitarist. I would put him right beside George Van Eps and Mundell Lowe in my pantheon of lyrical jazz guitarists.
Ed Bickert is a wonderful guitarist ! A Paul Desmond's question on the original liner notes of his album "Live" in 1975 : "How does he get to play chorus after chorusof chord sequences which could not possibly sound better on a keyboard ?"
@softspoken33 JIm Hall said to Desmond, "when you get to Canada look up Ed Bickert. He's the best at what I do". How humble Jim Hall is. However, anyone would be humbled by Ed Bickert. I think that everyone would play like Ed if they could. After listening to him even Joe Pass is mediocre and I like(d) Joe a whole lot.
I can really appretiate jim halls comment on Bickert. It seems like Jim himself was really striving for such a sound and style. Glad to be unhappy with Desmond would be a good example. To me Bickert is the closest thing Ive heard to a perfect improviser, its almost unbelievable. Its sad He isnt a Huge star, but I think he will be in time. Once people can evolve enough to understand about music.
Yeah, I put Ed and Hall in the same category of sound/approach with Jim being the 'experimentalist' of the two. But it makes sense now: Jim admired and took the character of Ed's playing and transdormed it for his own purposes - it was a intellectual leap, not mere emulation, that is fur sure. I play myself and I try to do the same with both those players... but personally when I hear bickert, I just relax, feel good, hear EVERY thing he plays (the magic of Ed: clarity and substance)
That comment about Jim Hall telling Desmond that Bickert is the "Best at What I do" just cracked me up! On ballads Bickert is the crown prince at knowing what not to play. He sounds like a sax player on guitar. His playing puts you in a certain mood of positive refrain. He captures the joy of the late 50s early 60s cocktail generation and pushes you to the limits of jazz improvisation. Truly the understated crown prince of jazz guitar.
It was such a pleasure to listen to Ed ,Claude and Don Thompson play at George's Spaghetti House in Toronto during the 70's,we were just a bunch of highschool kids getting our fix of some of the greatest Jazz players and music we could ever know.....and sitting so close to them,I actually got to know Claude Ranger and spoke many a times to Ed Bickert.
I once asked him who was his favourite guitarist and he replied " Jimi Hendrix"....That blew me away.Lol,Great memories....Thx for posting.
I was right with you at George's. Also used to goto that bar on Queen just west of University on the north side, forget the name now but I saw Lenny Breau (sp?). I was really too young to fully appreciate what I was seeing, but I'm glad I went.
And he used a Roland Cube in the old days. Roll off the tone on the tele and away you go. Ed is one of the greatest unsung guitarists! Spread the word. He is a treasure!
Hollow body Archtop sounds from a Telecaster?? WTF! ? Or should I say HTF?! Sure you can play Jazz on almost any guitar, but to get the tones without any pickup modification is pretty amazing! C'mere Tele on my wall. We got a date! Guess where we're going tonite?
Well yes of course, but you can't get those jazz tones out of certain guitars. Must be the amp. Yeah, this guy's playing is sweet. Glad i found out about him.
Questo signori miei è un grande della chitarra jazz I giovani dovrebbero ascoltare e capire come si suona !!!! Grande ED che suono che hai nelle mani !!!
"Pure and subtle music heard in retirement is something keener and more intense than the howling of storms or the rumble of cities. - George Santayana
he did later on, I sat front row and watched an intimate duo performance with Ed and Dave Young (the bassist with Lenny Breau for that live duo recording) like 12 years ago..wow!
When you have chops like Ed (Thank god I'm a Canadian and I was able to see these masters on C.B.C. television almost weekly) your dream is to have players like Don Thompson and Claude Ranger as your co-pilots. Man this video swings...with a capitol "S"
Yeah, he's definitely under-distributed. What's more, the Concord recordings don't do him justice. He got a sound that was the envy of every hollow-body player, but you hear that best on the sackville records that Don recorded, or on his sideman work, like the Paul Desmond Live Burbon Street record, or the live one with Frank Rosolino. I think it was also Don who recorded those.
Claude Ranger was (is?) such a fantastic drummer. Ed Bickert makes such beautiful and concise statements. Ranger's story is on par with 'this is spinal tap' drummer mysteries. Careful, he might jump out of the bushes one day with drum sticks.
vibraphonist 1 month ago
Happy birthday, today, Ed Bickert! My father was also born 1932. Your generation gave some truly remarkable and outstanding people. Greetings from MK
naposletku100 3 months ago
Ed to me looks somewhat like a handsome lumberjack, while being one of the most imaginative and gentle players on the guitar I've ever heard, a magician with his preference for very personal irradiant chords.
In Toronto, Paul Desmond with Ed in his trio definitely created some songs of overwhelming lyrical beauty and perfection.
noisyfan 5 months ago
The single note lines and the chordal voiceleading always make sense. The guy had incredible continuity and flow...
Modes9 6 months ago
Okay blasphemy here...I think Bickert is the God equivalent of Joe Pass...maybe even better? Oh yeah, I said it. Damn me to Jazz Hell.
Crabsdonthum 7 months ago
The drummer is Claude Ranger (rahn-zhay'), a great player who seems to have disappeared -- literally. No one knows if he's still alive!
It's amusing to read the comments that keep referring to Ed's equipment. I know him, and doubt if he ever thought about that other than to have something in his hand to make music...
hmengland41 1 year ago
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Must be an optical illusion, but at 1:47 it looks like the action on his guitar is about an inch high.
DjangoVanGogh 1 year ago
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DjangoVanGogh 1 year ago
Don't forget Claude Ranger on drums.
norko11 1 year ago
Oh god, a Tele for a perfect jazz sound. I quit.
TallSomeone 1 year ago
@TallSomeone Yeah, explain that to me. Sounds good, but what led this guy to a Tele?
SmelOdies 1 year ago
@SmelOdies Bill Frisell also used a tele with round wounds. It all depends on that sound that you're craving.
Yes the sound is in the fingers, but also in the guitar. The tele has a bright jangly sound that lends it's self to a certain sound, regardless what genre it's played in. I play a Eastman with 13 round wounds because I love out acoustic jazz ala Eddie Lang and the such. I couldn't play acoustic passages like Howard Alden (No Amps Allowed Record) with a tele, but that's not my sound.
pickinstone 1 year ago
That is the most awkward I have seen anyone do a bass solo, but it was awsome
kane555444 1 year ago
so so good. love it. and on a Tele!
peskypesky 1 year ago
Ed Bickert's sound is sooooo perfect! does anyone know if he uses round wound strings or flat wound?
jhagley 1 year ago
one of my favorite guitarists of all time!
jazz1bro 1 year ago
Bickert and Thompson are da bomb. In a world of crash, bash, it's wonderful to have musicians at a cold late night fireside intimacy making excellent music.
boodang062451 1 year ago
Funny how guitarists think so much of the gear a guitarist uses.Here, without the neck humbucker in his tele....and beautiful as ever.
Perhaps sometimes the more important gear: is the brain and the fingers...:)
golds04 1 year ago 7
How is it possible that Ed Bickert is not a big name like Jim Hall, Wes Montgomery or Kenny Burrell?? What a wonderful guitarist.
mrgone78 1 year ago 4
Amazing playing, but the awkwardness of the lady in the background at 2:15 caught my attention. I think, like most people, she didn't care for the bass solo too much.
imatube2 1 year ago
He's a mean, lean, voice-leading machine!
Modes9 1 year ago
white's man jazz?
shoegazer666 1 year ago
Flippin' fantastic. Ed Bickert was the reason I bought a Tele. I was pretty happy playing the usual archtop until I heard the man. Awesome guitarist. I would put him right beside George Van Eps and Mundell Lowe in my pantheon of lyrical jazz guitarists.
c8tdawwg 1 year ago 2
some of the nicest playing i think i've ever heard
seamothboy 1 year ago 3
Somewhere there is a comment on an Ed Bickert video concerning tone and equipment that states " it's not the arrow it's the Indian ".I like that.
j6449663 2 years ago 4
Variation: "It ain't the gun; it's the gunner."
bass0111 1 year ago
your on crack.
hockeyguyjc31 2 years ago
What a tone.
67starfire 2 years ago 3
ive watched this video like 100 times
TheEarlOfDublin 2 years ago 16
Ed Bickert is a wonderful guitarist ! A Paul Desmond's question on the original liner notes of his album "Live" in 1975 : "How does he get to play chorus after chorusof chord sequences which could not possibly sound better on a keyboard ?"
chrisrenoguitar 2 years ago 2
i love ed's tone.......
marcelcelmar 2 years ago 2
The thing that surprises me most is the Telecaster.
Just me though.
vpholwanna 2 years ago 3
hahah i play jazz with a dean!
bigassmatic 2 years ago
Jim Hall used to say "the sound starts in your ears", plus amp eq, and maybe he plays with the round side of the pick !
he's amzing, he's the epitome of competence meets criativity
softspoken33 2 years ago
@softspoken33 JIm Hall said to Desmond, "when you get to Canada look up Ed Bickert. He's the best at what I do". How humble Jim Hall is. However, anyone would be humbled by Ed Bickert. I think that everyone would play like Ed if they could. After listening to him even Joe Pass is mediocre and I like(d) Joe a whole lot.
skinkusmetalicus 1 year ago
I read somewhere that Desmond said that he was playing with Ed once and had to keep looking back to make sure he was only using two hands.
gdevane 2 years ago 16
@gdevane it's from the liner notes to one of Paul's Live Albums
Joshsax 1 year ago
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Absolutely Incredible Guitar Playing. Your friends at 35GuitarPickupTones{dot}com
tfw46 2 years ago
I can really appretiate jim halls comment on Bickert. It seems like Jim himself was really striving for such a sound and style. Glad to be unhappy with Desmond would be a good example. To me Bickert is the closest thing Ive heard to a perfect improviser, its almost unbelievable. Its sad He isnt a Huge star, but I think he will be in time. Once people can evolve enough to understand about music.
loren1283 2 years ago 3
Yeah, I put Ed and Hall in the same category of sound/approach with Jim being the 'experimentalist' of the two. But it makes sense now: Jim admired and took the character of Ed's playing and transdormed it for his own purposes - it was a intellectual leap, not mere emulation, that is fur sure. I play myself and I try to do the same with both those players... but personally when I hear bickert, I just relax, feel good, hear EVERY thing he plays (the magic of Ed: clarity and substance)
jazzbox111 2 years ago
That comment about Jim Hall telling Desmond that Bickert is the "Best at What I do" just cracked me up! On ballads Bickert is the crown prince at knowing what not to play. He sounds like a sax player on guitar. His playing puts you in a certain mood of positive refrain. He captures the joy of the late 50s early 60s cocktail generation and pushes you to the limits of jazz improvisation. Truly the understated crown prince of jazz guitar.
campfirecrooner 2 years ago 2
well done, nice comment
jazzbox111 2 years ago
It was such a pleasure to listen to Ed ,Claude and Don Thompson play at George's Spaghetti House in Toronto during the 70's,we were just a bunch of highschool kids getting our fix of some of the greatest Jazz players and music we could ever know.....and sitting so close to them,I actually got to know Claude Ranger and spoke many a times to Ed Bickert.
I once asked him who was his favourite guitarist and he replied " Jimi Hendrix"....That blew me away.Lol,Great memories....Thx for posting.
wordright 2 years ago
I was right with you at George's. Also used to goto that bar on Queen just west of University on the north side, forget the name now but I saw Lenny Breau (sp?). I was really too young to fully appreciate what I was seeing, but I'm glad I went.
monkeybass01 2 years ago
I suspect that Ed's is an unusually woody sounding tele. I don't think that even Ed could get that kind of tone out of any tele.
byzantine15 2 years ago
Jim Hall said Ed was the one guy who scared him to death when he walked into the room! Beautiful player playing near impossible chords at speed.
sitarnut 2 years ago
And he used a Roland Cube in the old days. Roll off the tone on the tele and away you go. Ed is one of the greatest unsung guitarists! Spread the word. He is a treasure!
seamontJCM 2 years ago
to all guitar players, look at his right hand, he is picking near the neck pickup, i think that contributes to the "archtop sound"
MarioMoreno 2 years ago
Yeah, I think that you are spot on there
jazzbox111 2 years ago
he makes me want a telecaster (another one!)
MarioMoreno 2 years ago
Hollow body Archtop sounds from a Telecaster?? WTF! ? Or should I say HTF?! Sure you can play Jazz on almost any guitar, but to get the tones without any pickup modification is pretty amazing! C'mere Tele on my wall. We got a date! Guess where we're going tonite?
ZeropointZero70 2 years ago
It's all in the fingers. Ed's living proof of this. Amazing, eh?
bestestrecords 2 years ago
Well yes of course, but you can't get those jazz tones out of certain guitars. Must be the amp. Yeah, this guy's playing is sweet. Glad i found out about him.
ZeropointZero70 2 years ago
THE BEST!!!
feliciojrguitar 2 years ago
Jim Hall once said to Paul Desmond,
"Ed Bickert. He's the best at what I do".
What else can you say?
skinkusmetalicus 2 years ago
We need more Ed Bickert on youtube.
loren1283 2 years ago
Questo signori miei è un grande della chitarra jazz I giovani dovrebbero ascoltare e capire come si suona !!!! Grande ED che suono che hai nelle mani !!!
gabri3l367 2 years ago
Fender Rhodes sound on guitar!
sustain on the chords what a different guitar sound.
grantgre 3 years ago
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"Pure and subtle music heard in retirement is something keener and more intense than the howling of storms or the rumble of cities. - George Santayana
neothomist1275 3 years ago
I always thought Ed had stuck a humbucker into his tele? this looks like the stock singlecoil neck pup. Wow what a sound.
emmadet 3 years ago
he did later on, I sat front row and watched an intimate duo performance with Ed and Dave Young (the bassist with Lenny Breau for that live duo recording) like 12 years ago..wow!
Definitely amazing!
lanerant 2 years ago
Lucky! I heard he stopped playing after his wife passed on. Unfortunate, Bickert was such an amazing player!
bestestrecords 2 years ago
great playing,
So beautiful and exquisite harmonies, melodic, warm and good tone
one of the best jazz guitars at the world ever
guntergermany 3 years ago
badass playing !
earsoup 3 years ago
When you have chops like Ed (Thank god I'm a Canadian and I was able to see these masters on C.B.C. television almost weekly) your dream is to have players like Don Thompson and Claude Ranger as your co-pilots. Man this video swings...with a capitol "S"
Thanks for posting this gem
RC
eightstring 3 years ago
yessssssssssssss
adamomusica 3 years ago
Excellent footage. Great to hear the "cream of the crop" of Canadian jazz musicians including the great Claude Ranger on drums.
felixjazzbass1 3 years ago
Man, the only guitar/bass duo I can think of who are in a similar dimension are Lenny Breau and Dave Young
bearblaster420 3 years ago
holy crap, that bass buy was gettin it! and i think hes wearing a turtle neck too!
squeadlieshero 3 years ago
Thank you Ed, you're a real god, a real god.
Putytand 3 years ago
Thank you for posting this beauty!
trabanul 3 years ago
Mr Jazz-on-a-Telecaster himself not counting the late great Ted Greene as well. Also, the great Don Thompson on bass. Thank you for this.
Ken, Toronto
dreadnought45 3 years ago
Breath-takingly beautiful!!!
jason8string 3 years ago
Eddie Bickert might be the best one ever.
Creationismsucks 3 years ago 2
Ed, has such command of the instrument, Wonderful musician. Thanks for posting.
steveykeeffe 3 years ago
Ed is the definition of tasteful playing. He and Wes Montgomery are the masters of it.
gdevane 3 years ago
great to see these clips, wonderful playing,Thank you for posting
deangelico 3 years ago
Ed is so underrated that it hurts. His phrasing, feel & beautiful tone are unmatched. I wish his cds were more readily available.
doughboy777 3 years ago 2
Yeah, he's definitely under-distributed. What's more, the Concord recordings don't do him justice. He got a sound that was the envy of every hollow-body player, but you hear that best on the sackville records that Don recorded, or on his sideman work, like the Paul Desmond Live Burbon Street record, or the live one with Frank Rosolino. I think it was also Don who recorded those.
Creationismsucks 3 years ago
absolutely great playing and true musicality Ed. What experiences and stories!
jazz1bro 3 years ago
He plays off the melody so well...i love it
unibomber111 3 years ago
Neils Henning Orsted Peterson on bass...WOW!!! I never knew he & Ed played together..that is some great jazz!
thehymster 3 years ago
No, that's Don Thomspon not NHOP.
NyJazzGuit 3 years ago 6
haha, it almost does look like nhop eh?...but not it's another great canadian musican Don Thompson
unibomber111 3 years ago
The beard and the turle neck! Btw Thompson was great on Jim Hall's "Live" if anyone digs his style.
middlebit 3 years ago
I'm sure most bassists would consider being mistaken for NHOP quite a compliment.
JazzGeetar213 3 years ago
When was this? Probably late 70's early 80's. Thanks for posting such wonderful collective spontaneous composition.
grippder1 4 years ago
From the looks of Don Thompson, i would say so, becasue he was born 1940
unibomber111 3 years ago
ed has a humbucker indeed!!
stoofbuis 4 years ago
nice and sweet performanced by the master
jasmoism 4 years ago
Wow! Thanks so much for this video of the master!
keithjazz7 4 years ago
This band was terrific....!! Absolutely grande classe!
memzehni 4 years ago
A true genius at work. Who needs a humbucker? A great example of time, feel, and taste. We need more players like Ed!
Guit7Jazz 4 years ago