Yet, by calling his seventh recording Everything Starts Now, the 60-year-old sax man has revitalized his outlook with its most visceral sounds and depth-diving songs. He even studied cognitive psychology to develop an understanding of what makes improvisational musicians do what they do: "How can we spontaneously compose on our instruments?"

Ask if Pedicin's clan - young Michael the jazz-bo, his 90-year-old pop Mike who had a smash with 1956's "Shake a Hand" - got a fair shake within the recording industry, and he laughs. While the father eschewed limelight for home and family, the son has done sessions and taught to maintain his musical profile.

"I have, in fact, become more pragmatic as I get older, and tend to view the world with greater tolerance," says Pedicin. "I better understand the paradigm of my creativity and devotion to jazz, and how it plays into everything that I do and want to do."

Pedicin may have once questioned his direction, but never his love of the craft or the passion from whence it came. From the 1980s Michael Pedicin Jr. until now, his tender but soulfully brawny sound has remained clarion clear.

"I've had a lifetime to formulate what I'm talking about. You can tell what I'm feeling when I play, especially a ballad." Mention Coltrane's influence upon him and Pedicin's enthralled. "He's never far away from everything I do. There's not ever a day that I don't listen to 'Trane. I feel I'm being energized by his soul."

As for the songs that fill Everything Starts Now, it's Johnnie Valentino whose intuitively complex signatures embolden and inspire the saxophonist to greatness.

"He's more than my guitarist," says Pedicin of Valentino. "He's my friend and co-producer, as well as a mentor to me. He knows who I am and what makes me play better."

Anything that betters the already magnificent Michael Pedicin - after all his history, personally, psychologically and spiritually - is pretty sensational.