Bill Bickford

Bill Bickford (* 7. July 1956 in Norwalk (Connecticut) as William Campbell Bickford ) is an American fusion and jazz - guitarist .

Live and act

Bickford's father was a pianist; an older brother played classical guitar. He began playing the guitar at the age of 14 and studied at Berklee College of Music in 1974/75 and at City College in New York City from 1977 to 1979 . He also had lessons in composition and arrangement and played in the 1970s a. a. with Dave Liebman , Pee Wee Ellis and an R&B band. From 1977 to 1986 he was a member of the Larry Elgart Orchestra. The first recordings were made in 1979 with John McNeil . From 1982 to 1992 he was part of the Defunkt formation founded by Joseph Bowie ; He also worked from 1984 to 1991 with Jim Pepper , in the mid-80s with Donald Byrd , Jack McDuff and the band Liquid Hips founded by former Defunkt members .

In the 1990s Bickford Ed Schuller's formation Eleventh Hour and the fusion band of Billy Cobham and Wolfgang Schmid belonged to; from 1996 he played in Jack Walrath's band Masters of Suspence . From 1988 he worked with his own trio Bigfood with bassist Kim Clarke and percussionist Bruce Ditmas ; In 1990 he performed with Jim Pepper and Ed Schuller at the Münster Jazz Festival. From 1992 he held in Germany - u. a. on the Schorndorfer Guitar Days - several guitar workshops.

In 1998 Bickford played in a jazz combo with the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln under the direction of Gunther Schuller ( Witchi-Tai-To - The Music of Jim Pepper ) and in Munich with Marty Cook's band Conspiracy . In the new millennium he was part of the Jim Payne trio in New York .

Discographic notes

• Bill Bickford's Bigfoot: Semi-Precious Metal (Tutu)
• Ed Schuller: Snake Dancing (Tutu, 1998)
• Billy Cobham / Wolfgang Schmid / Bill Bickford: Paradox (Tiptoe, 1996)
• Billy Cobham / Wolfgang Schmid / Bill Bickford: Paradox (Paradox, 1997)
• Billy Cobham / Wolfgang Schmid / Bill Bickford: Paradox (The first Second, 1998)
• Jack Walrath: Get Hit in Your Soul (ACT, 1998)

swell

• Bielefeld catalog 1988 & 2002
• Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings . 8th edition. Penguin, London 2006, ISBN 0-14-102327-9 .
• Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .