Ed Bickert

Ed Bickert has taken Jim Hall's dark-toned chordal style to a new high both in his solo recordings and with other artists. One of my favorite albums is Paul Desmond's Pure Desmond. Below are two selections from that album.

• Mean To Me - Ed plays a chord solo that is both melodic and harmonically miraculous.
• Just Squeeze Me - Another flawless chord solo with a reference back to the underlying Elington melody line. The richness of Ed's voicings is such that Paul Desmond once said that he would look to see how many guitarists there actually were back there.