Edward Isaac Bickert, CM (November 29, 1932 – February 28, 2019) was a Canadian guitarist who played mainstream jazz and swing music.

His international reputation grew steadily from the mid-1970s onward as he recorded albums both as a bandleader and as a backing musician for Paul Desmond, Rosemary Clooney, and other artists, with whom he toured in North America, Europe and Japan.

As a child, Bickert and his family moved to Vernon, British Columbia[3] where his parents operated a chicken farm and had a small country dance band.

When he was ten years old, Bickert started playing a guitar owned by his older brother,[4] and he was soon performing at country dances with his parents.

[5] By 1957, Bickert had joined two local jazz groups, one led by saxophonist Moe Koffman, the other by clarinetist Phil Nimmons.

Bickert played on Koffman's North American hit record "Swinging Shepherd Blues", which made it to number 23 on Billboard's Top 40 chart during the spring of 1958.

During this period, Bickert also joined the rhythm section of the Howard Cable Orchestra, which was featured on the "Showtime" program on CBC TV.

The rhythm section of Rob McConnell's Boss Brass—bassist Don Thompson, and drummer Terry Clarke—were frequent partners with Bickert at jazz gigs in Toronto in the early 1970s.

By the mid-1970s, the trio of Bickert, Thompson, and Clarke was serving as the house band at Toronto's Bourbon Street nightclub, where visiting American jazz musicians would employ the group for extended engagements.

In June, 1974, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond of the Dave Brubeck Quartet played a two-week engagement at the club with Bickert, Thompson, and Clarke.

For his 1975 Bourbon Street engagements, Desmond hired drummer Jerry Fuller in place of Clarke, and started calling the band his "Canadian Group".

In addition to Desmond, Bickert accompanied Zoot Sims, Art Farmer, Milt Jackson, Red Norvo, Frank Rosolino, and Kenny Wheeler, among others, at Bourbon Street from the mid-1970s to 1984, when the club changed it booking policy and stopped hiring touring jazz stars.

The Ed Bickert Trio served as the rhythm section on live and studio albums recorded in Toronto by Frank Rosolino, Ruby Braff, Buddy Tate, and Humphrey Littleton.

Bickert also appeared on the label as a backing musician for artists including Benny Carter, Ken Peplowski, Rob McConnell, Fraser MacPherson, and Rosemary Clooney.

He made no albums as a solo leader after 1989's Third Floor Richard, though he continued to record regularly with The Boss Brass, and with groups led by Moe Koffman and Toronto drummer Barry Elmes.

[9] In the winter of 1995, Bickert slipped on some ice and broke bones in both of his arms, which halted his musical activity for a period of months.

So he let that go, ended up working in the garden, caring for the pool he never swam in, perfecting his knowledge of bird songs, spending time with his grandchildren and listening to performers he didn’t know, many of them younger, and discovering a love for certain musical styles in the classical genre, as well as returning to early 20th century composers, whom he had always found compelling.

Maybe I'd had enough… My wife passed away, and at the time, I was having some problems with arthritis, and I was starting to drink quite heavily, and those things combined sort of finished me off.

He explained his thoughts on these contemporary jazz sounds to Downbeat magazine in 1984, when he was 52: "I haven't really heard that many of the newer guitar players.

"[10]Bickert's facility for accompanying a soloist was frequently noted by musicians and jazz writers as one of the things that made his playing noteworthy.

Jazz journalist Mark Miller wrote, "It is not to diminish his solos, which are models of succinct melodicism, to suggest that the Bickert identity lies in the chords that he plays.

"[6] Bickert's solos, Miller wrote, were in the melody-driven tradition associated with players like Lester Young and Chet Baker: "[Their] harmonic sophistication notwithstanding, their direction is essentially linear—or rather, naturally linear, full of graceful movement and bluesy inflection.

[13] Bickert was able to play his Telecaster in a wide variety of musical contexts, from big band sessions with Sammy Nestico and Rob McConnell to the intimate jazz played by Paul Desmond, and to exploit the unique qualities that solid-bodied instruments have, particularly regarding the sustaining of notes and chords.

"[8] Journalist Mark Miller wrote that Bickert's chords "pulsed with a soft glow,"[10] and guitarist Lorne Lofsky said "The sound he got out of his guitar was very different.

It seems that in order to get rid of the ringy quality of the Tele you have to cut off the highs to the point where it gets muddy.”[14]Despite these reservations, however, Bickert recorded almost exclusively using the Telecaster during the final three decades of his career, including on all of the albums for which he was leader or co-leader.