He was the coolest cat we ever met

With the Monday morning drizzle providing a fitting melancholy backdrop, Bill Burke and I parked ourselves in a downtown coffee shop and held an informal wake for the coolest cat we ever met.

“I’m not very religious but I do believe there’s a God and that God touches people,” said Burke, the founder and organizer of Spokane’s Pig Out in the Park. “And I believe God touched Alex to be a jazz guitar player.”

No argument here, Bill.

Alex Bedini was a master of the fluid, straight-ahead style of jazz that blossomed from the fingers of jazz guitar innovators like Django Reinhardt, Johnny Smith and Joe Pass.

But Bedini didn’t just play jazz. He was jazz. Everything about him – from his gravel-voice to his cool Van Dyke beard to his hipster sense of humor – exuded an aura of the jazzman.

A natural performer, Bedini was a fixture to area nightclubs and festivals for nearly 30 years. It’s painful to think of our music scene without him.

The Hayden Lake resident’s battle with prostate cancer ended on Aug. 10. He was 82.

Somehow Bedini’s passing slipped beneath the radar of many musicians who knew and admired him. I learned of his death on Labor Day, moments before taking the stage with my own band at Pig Out.

As I assimilated the news my mind flashed back to a December night in 1983. The place was a murky nicotine-stained nightspot on the South Hill. I had come to interview Bedini for a profile and watch him work.

“There ain’t nobody I can’t play on a par with,” Bedini told me with a growl.

The proof was in his fingers, which flew over the frets of a fat-bodied Gibson ES175 guitar that had once belonged to the great virtuoso Pass. Bedini and Pass (who died in 1994) were good friends. Whenever Bedini was in Los Angeles the two would meet for a jam session.

“Pass wouldn’t waste his time with me if I couldn’t stay with him,” he said. “Why else does he tell me to bring my guitar along?”

Bedini’s playing was articulate and heady. Like his musical phrasing, he had an impeccable sense of timing when spinning a yarn. Asked about the worst dive he ever played in, for example, Bedini regaled me with the following:

“There was this place in Herkimer, New York, called Casey’s Joint,” he said, pausing for effect.

“Casey was this big, 300-pound slob who owned the place.” Pause.

“He had this 50-pound cat on the bar that used to drink beer. It was awful.” Pause.

“We played there – but he never paid us.”

Bedini grew up in Rochester, N.Y. His parents were Italian immigrants with six kids to feed. Poverty gave Bedini a late start in music. There was simply no extra money to buy instruments. But at age 17, he found an old violin and began practicing. A year later, a buddy gave him a weathered guitar. Bedini made a smooth transition.

“It was a horrible instrument,” he said. “But, you know, cost has nothing to do with desire.”

Bedini played his way through the Army. He played at New York’s legendary Club Downbeat after World War II.

He played and he played.

“When you improvise, it’s like an artist sitting down to do a painting,” Bedini said. “Everything has color. When I play I see those colors and shades of colors. If you are going to be good, you have to be an artist.”

In 1976 he moved to Coeur d’Alene from Los Angeles at the urging of relatives. He and family members opened Papino’s – a wonderful Italian restaurant I frequented many times.

I count myself lucky to have been one of Bedini’s friends. So does Burke. He noted that the guitarist performed in 24 straight Pig Outs. Burke is now in the early stages of rounding up guitar players and other musicians for a concert in the late-jazzman’s honor.

Bravo! A night of sweet music would be the harmonious way to say goodbye to the coolest cat we ever met.