Gianni Bedori was born in Mantua on November 25, 1930, and died at his home in Fizzonasco, on the southern edge of Milan, on January 21, 2005, at 74. He led two careers under two names. Under his own name he was a tenor, soprano and alto saxophonist, flutist and clarinetist who spent the 1960s and 1970s in the bands of Giorgio Gaslini, and made two solo records, Dedicated To Picasso (1974) and The Man (1977), that Italian sources rank among the landmarks of the new Italian jazz of the decade. As Johnny Sax he was a commercial instrumentalist for the Italian label PDU, Mina's company, and then for Produttori Associati, with entries in the Disco per l'Estate of 1975 and the Festivalbar of 1976.

He studied clarinet at the Bologna conservatory, moved to Milan in the 1950s and played in dance orchestras, among them Riccardo Rauchi's from 1959 to 1961, according to Italian Wikipedia. English Wikipedia says he began with the singer Enzo Amadori. His jazz work starts in 1963. That year he recorded Jazz Forms For Export with bassist Giorgio Buratti, playing alto and baritone saxophone next to trumpeter Sergio Fanni and drummer Jimmy Pratt, and joined Gaslini's quartet for Oltre with bassist Bruno Crovetto and drummer Franco Tonani. Gaslini had already put him on flute for 12 Canzoni D'Amore Italiane (1964), and he played alto saxophone and flute on Dall'Alba All'Alba (1965).

On February 4, 1966, he was in the Milan studio for Gaslini's Nuovi Sentimenti (New Feelings) Suite, on alto saxophone and flute in a group that also held trumpeters Don Cherry and Enrico Rava, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri, bassists J.-F. Jenny-Clark and Kent Carter, and drummers Aldo Romano and Tonani. Discogs itemizes his credit on 23 Gaslini releases between Oltre (1963) and Cantos (2000), including the big-band records Il Fiume Furore and Grido (both 1968) and Newport In Milan (1971), the quartet records Africa ! Mikrokosmos (1970) and Concerto Della Resistenza (1974), the sextet records Free Actions (1977) and Graffiti (1978), and Live At The Public Theater In New York (1980). Italian Wikipedia counts fifteen LPs with Gaslini.

Alongside that, he recorded as Johnny Sax. Discogs dates the first Johnny Sax LP, Incontro Con Bob Mitchell, to 1968 on the Sun label; the PDU singles Donna Sola (Processione) and The Morning After followed in 1972 and 1973, and from 1973 he recorded for Produttori Associati, where Popsy took part in the Disco per l'Estate of 1975 and Piccolo Cielo in the Festivalbar of 1976. In 1978 he moved to Ariston for 7 - Soft Sound, and in 1982 and 1983 he made two LPs of instrumental versions of Gino Paoli songs for Paoli's label, WEP.

His own-name records came in between. Dedicated To Picasso - A Solo Album (PDU, 1974) is a solo record of ten pieces on Picasso's themes, with saxophones, flute and electric clarinet recorded in overdubs; English Wikipedia and Daily Green date the suite to 1973, and the Saint Louis College of Music's jazz archive in Rome, which digitized and restored the original analog tapes, lists the record under 1974. The Man (Atlantic, 1977) is a seven-part suite for tenor and soprano saxophone and flute with pianist Mario Rusca, bassist Julius Farmer and drummer Johnny Vidacovich. A 1975 PDU double LP, Il Nuovo Jazz Italiano Degli Anni 70, presented him alongside Gaslini, trumpeter Guido Mazzon and pianist Gaetano Liguori. Discogs credits Bedori as writer of "Jesus' Last Ballad" on Bill Evans and Toots Thielemans's Affinity (Warner Bros., 1979), recorded in New York in the autumn of 1978.

He played on other people's records for the rest of his career: the flute on Astor Piazzolla's Libertango, recorded in Milan in 1974, tenor saxophone on Augusto Martelli's records, and saxophone parts for Franco Battiato, Ivan Cattaneo and Toto Cutugno. His later own-name records were Between The 2 Of Us (1994) with pianist Guido Manusardi, Vento D'Africa (2002) and Controtempo (Splasc(h) Records, 2003), a record of early-jazz repertoire with pianists Giuseppe Emmanuele, Enrico Intra and Gaslini. Italian Wikipedia gives Controtempo, dated 2004 there, as his last work, and Discogs describes a jazz career of more than 40 years, from 1963 to 2004. The saxophonist Emiliano Vernizzi names Bedori among his teachers at Milan's Civici Corsi di Jazz in his own biography; no other source seen confirms that teaching post.

The Italian journalist Gianni Lucini, writing for Daily Green, says Bedori took Charlie Parker as his first model and later John Coltrane. Under Gaslini he played free-jazz and avant-garde material; Discogs styles the 1966 suite and the 1970s quartet records as Free Jazz and Avant-garde Jazz. Dedicated To Picasso is tagged Contemporary Jazz and Avant-garde Jazz, and The Man carries the styles Jazz-Rock, Jazz-Funk, Avant-garde Jazz, Fusion and Modal. Controtempo looks the other way, to "Basin Street Stomp," "St. Louis Blues" and "At The Jazz Band Ball," on a title that names the C-melody saxophone.

The Johnny Sax records are a separate body of work. They are instrumental arrangements of pop songs, film themes and Gino Paoli melodies, with Discogs styles of Easy Listening and, on most releases, a Jazz and Pop genre pair. The Johnny Sax entry on Discogs carries 39 releases as leader, mostly singles, easy-listening LPs and compilations. Under his own name Discogs lists nine, and it itemizes his credit on 23 releases led by Gaslini. The Johnny Sax work was the larger commercial part of his output, but his jazz work is where the sources place him: the Discogs biography and English Wikipedia call him a jazz saxophonist, the Saint Louis jazz archive in Rome carries him, and the largest single group of his sideman credits is on Gaslini's jazz records.