Not like father, like son, for this musical family

Mike Pedicin will be remembered by most people who know the original, classic rock and roll of the 1950s for his recording of Shake A Hand—a song originally recorded by R&B singer Faye Adams in 1952.
“My father recorded that in 1956,” said Michael Pedicin, the son of Mike, who, unlike his father, never got into rock and roll.
As a kid growing up in the 50s, the younger Pedicin used to astound his musician father with his choice in music.
“I was 13 or 14 and would be listening to Cannonball Adderley,” Pedicin said in a recent telephone interview. “Dad would ask, ‘What in the world are you listening to?’”
The elder Pedicin had a band starting in the 1940s, and was still performing at 80, according to his son. “Dad is 91 now,” he said. “He’s alive and well.”
But apparently, Mike (as the senior Pedicin is known) never grew to understand his son’s penchant for jazz. The son (Michael), a tenor saxophonist, will be appearing at the Cape May Jazz Festival, a venue with which he is comfortably familiar.
“I’ve appeared at several of Cape May’s festivals; this will be my second with a band,” he said.
He will be performing with the Michael Pedicin Quintet, featuring pianist Jim Ridl, guitarist John Velentino, drummer Bob Shomo and Andy Lalasis on bass.
Pedicin will be at Carney’s on Friday, the Boiler Room on Saturday, and on Sunday he’ll be at the jam session.
“People often used to think it was my father, whenever I was on a gig,” he said.
If so, they were in for a surprise. Michael Pedicin was hooked on jazz at an early age, and, unlike dad, never played rock and roll.
“Dad was a talented man,” he said. “I watched him as a kid, and he was more of an entertainer than musician.”
Even when the Beatles were enthralling many teens back in the early 60s, the young Pedicin wasn’t impressed.
“I was about 16, and had my car radio tuned to jazz,” he explained. “If I had a date, and she didn’t like what I had on the radio, well…I wouldn’t date her again. She had no taste!”
Pedicin’s music idols weren’t the rock stars of his teen years; rather they were the jazz artists, like John Coltrane, Charlie Porter, and Michael Brecker.
“Michael was a tenor saxophonist who had the most influence on me,” he noted. “He died young at age 57, and I still do the scholarship show every year at his alma mater—Cheltenham High School.
Pedicin, who grew up in Ardmore, PA, just outside Philadelphia, listens to jazz with more than just his ear. Having a Ph. D. in psychology (he did his dissertation on “Neurological and Psychological Changes that Occur During the Creative Process), he can also put his heart and mind into his music, as he will when he starts teaching a “jazz perspectives” course at Stockton next spring.
“I always wanted to be challenged by music,” he said. “I attempted to play as brilliantly as Coltrane, who had developed a ‘harmonic structure.’ Consequently, I tell my music students to do a lot of listening to music, so they can absorb what others have done.”
Coltrane’s harmonic structure, he said, brought about a complete revolution.
“It was a sophisticated structure over which you could improvise,” he said.
But alas, Pedicin bemoaned the fate of contemporary jazz.
“We’re losing our audience,” he said. “Losing it to hip-hop, and such. Music is too dollar-driven, so it’s being adapted to today’s violent, sensationalist quality. It appeals to young people at that level.”
Pedicin still goes into schools and tries to introduce kids to music—his music.
“I’ll introduce them to Miles Davis and his mid-1950s quintet,” he said. “I tell them that this is what jazz is supposed to represent.”
He’s in the process of putting together another CD to join his present one: “Everything Starts Now.” Having been the musical director at the Tropicana in Atlantic City from 1984-99, he’s now back on the road, which is fortunate for those of us who want to catch him at sites like the Cape May Jazz Festival, Nov. 7-9, now in its 15th year.
This year’s festival is dedicated to Maynard Ferguson, and, having been a Ferguson musician, Pedicin will feel right at home.
Whether or not he still tries to emulate John Coltrane, you can tell by simply visiting Cape May this weekend.
“Coltrane’s music is best characterized as ‘sheets of sound,’” he explained. “It is beautifully smooth, haunting, crying out, searching…soft.”