Stanley Jordan, yay or nay?

[henryrobinett]

It always seemed to me one of the main reasons he never caught on with more guitarists was because he's playing an almost entirely different instrument. The same rules don't apply. I can't really get his thing out of my guitar conceptually.

I greatly admire his playing but never got into him at all.

In the mid 70s a couple of musicians used to tell me about this guy from Stanford or Palo Alto who played this way. I never heard him, but I realized years later they were telling me about Stanley Jordan.

[marcwhy]

I'm not sure I'd have this in the "other styles" section, but guys like Stanley and Charlie Hunter, as Henry said above, play a whole other instrument. FWIW, I've seen both Stanley and Charlie, and I've walked away thinking, "Wow - amazing!" but then I don't go home and try to play their stuff or buy up all their CDs (like I do with other musicians!).

[VinceMGuitar]

I admit I was always more of a "Nay" on Stanley Jordan. I've seen him before and I just didn't bond with the sound or the concept. I thought he was mainly an interesting curiosity and that's about it. Then recently I saw this and was happy to change my mind! This illustrates his impossible technique and ability while playing great stuff in a more conventional sense. I still don't think I'll pick up any of his recordings, but he's definitely got it goin' on.

[pants]

I admit I was always more of a "Nay" on Stanley Jordan. I've seen him before and I just didn't bond with the sound or the concept. I thought he was mainly an interesting curiosity and that's about it. Then recently I saw this and was happy to change my mind! This illustrates his impossible technique and ability while playing great stuff in a more conventional sense. I still don't think I'll pick up any of his recordings, but he's definitely got it goin' on.

But... if you're going to turn the guitar into a Casiotone sounding keyboard, why not just play a keyboard, maybe one that actually sounds good even?

[lammie200]

...- A Lebanese Beatles cover band that was as good as the Fab Faux...

Did they call themselves "Street the Beat" or something like that? For some reason that is ringing a bell. I am going to ask my brother, he would know.

[pants]

Someone else mentioned Charlie Hunter, who is a more blatant example of the faults of a technique "gimmick." Seeing Charlie Hunter live as a guitarist is fascinating. I saw him perform at a smaller club standing right up by the stage and just stood there with my jaw on the floor at what he was doing. But... imagine listening to him without knowing that the bass and guitar were one guy on one instrument. Both his bass lines and his solos suffer musically for the restraints of staying together on the neck to facilitate the limits of the technique. There's no denying that.
Stanley Jordan with his tapping technique on multiple instruments is more proficient at keeping the multiple parts going at the same time without the technical aspects of notes and rhythm suffering. However, as many have mentioned, the tone suffers greatly. Close your eyes and listen to the Autumn Leaves video linked above thinking of the comping and lead as separate entities. You'd ask yourself why doesn't that guitarist pluck his strings, you can barely hear him and it sounds so hollow? And also, why is the pianist playing such a crummy sounding synth?
If the end goal is producing beautiful music, then no matter how cool it is that you can play 2 guitars at the same time (or a bass and a guitar), if the music sounds worse than it would with multiple musicians filling the role(s), have you really done your audience a service?

[neatomic]

I haven't listened to him in a while, but I too remember seeing him in Manhattan back in the day, in front of that hot dog place on the corner of 48th St (Orange Julius?).

oh man orange julius..a liquid creamsicle in a cup...classic old nyc

48thst (guitar row) was my heaven

cheers

[John A.]

It always seemed to me one of the main reasons he never caught on with more guitarists was because he's playing an almost entirely different instrument. The same rules don't apply. I can't really get his thing out of my guitar conceptually.

I greatly admire his playing but never got into him at all.

In the mid 70s a couple of musicians used to tell me about this guy from Stanford or Palo Alto who played this way. I never heard him, but I realized years later they were telling me about Stanley Jordan.

Mid 70s, he was in high school. I didn't realize he has a rep that young.

John

[John A.]

That is similar to my vague recollection as well. I remember seeing some street musicians playing around the guitar shops on 48th as well. Also, I remember seeing Kenny Gwyn (the link in my above post) at Mills Pub on Bleeker many weekends, then later at the Inner Circle which was way out the west end as I recall.

BTW, that guy that claimed to be Jimmy Reed might have played a street fair in the East Village one weekend day. The Edge from U2 showed up and took the stage as I recall. This was right when U2 was starting to get attention. Damn, I wish there would have been smartphones back then. To get some of that stuff on video wouldn't make me feel like my memories of those times are fading away.

I vaguely remember Kenny Gwyn, though I don't think I ever set foot in Mills Tavern back then - it was an outlaw biker bar, and I was a kid. The Jimmy Reed guy was a trip - he would dress in suits, spats and bowler hat and walk up to anybody who happened to be playing in the park (e.g. yours truly), grab his guitar and ramble on drunkenly about how he was Jimmy Reed. I believed him until I figured out Jimmy Reed was dead. Or was he ....?

John

[John A.]

Did they call themselves "Street the Beat" or something like that? For some reason that is ringing a bell. I am going to ask my brother, he would know.

Could be. I don't remember the name, but they had the sound down.

John

[John A.]

Someone else mentioned Charlie Hunter, who is a more blatant example of the faults of a technique "gimmick." Seeing Charlie Hunter live as a guitarist is fascinating. I saw him perform at a smaller club standing right up by the stage and just stood there with my jaw on the floor at what he was doing. But... imagine listening to him without knowing that the bass and guitar were one guy on one instrument. Both his bass lines and his solos suffer musically for the restraints of staying together on the neck to facilitate the limits of the technique. There's no denying that.
Stanley Jordan with his tapping technique on multiple instruments is more proficient at keeping the multiple parts going at the same time without the technical aspects of notes and rhythm suffering. However, as many have mentioned, the tone suffers greatly. Close your eyes and listen to the Autumn Leaves video linked above thinking of the comping and lead as separate entities. You'd ask yourself why doesn't that guitarist pluck his strings, you can barely hear him and it sounds so hollow? And also, why is the pianist playing such a crummy sounding synth?
If the end goal is producing beautiful music, then no matter how cool it is that you can play 2 guitars at the same time (or a bass and a guitar), if the music sounds worse than it would with multiple musicians filling the role(s), have you really done your audience a service?

Over the last year or so, I've been seeing a guy in the subways with doubleneck rig. One neck is a bass, the other is 6- string, attached to a flattop acoustic body. He taps simultaneously on both, mainly playing standards against a drum machine beat. From a distance, it sounds like a decent organ trio. But the closer you get, the worse it sounds.

John

[lammie200]

Could be. I don't remember the name, but they had the sound down.

John

From what I remember the drummer used buckets and they did early Beatles tunes.

[lammie200]

I vaguely remember Kenny Gwyn, though I don't think I ever set foot in Mills Tavern back then - it was an outlaw biker bar, and I was a kid. The Jimmy Reed guy was a trip - he would dress in suits, spats and bowler hat and walk up to anybody who happened to be playing in the park (e.g. yours truly), grab his guitar and ramble on drunkenly about how he was Jimmy Reed. I believed him until I figured out Jimmy Reed was dead. Or was he ....?

John

Haha, Jimmy Reed was dead by that time. I definitely remember the Jimmy Reed guy and I think that he did play that street fair that I went to near Astor Place where Edge showed up. It was strange because, like you say, he never really seemed legit. He might have even crashed that street fair, but at the time I got the feeling that he was finally going to be accepted as one of the more legit street acts. I do vaguely remember that the word on the street was that he wasn't Jimmy Reed even though Jimmy Reed's name got tossed about. Pretty much just like you describe with the suits and hats.

I was pretty young as well but I don't remember much intimidation at Mills Tavern back then. It might have been a year or two after the bikers left - I don't know. I do think that the musicians were doing coke in the back room between sets. My cousin and I just nursed our beers.

[John A.]

Haha, Jimmy Reed was dead by that time. I definitely remember the Jimmy Reed guy and I think that he did play that street fair that I went to near Astor Place where Edge showed up. It was strange because, like you say, he never really seemed legit. He might have even crashed that street fair, but at the time I got the feeling that he was finally going to be accepted as one of the more legit street acts. I do vaguely remember that the word on the street was that he wasn't Jimmy Reed even though Jimmy Reed's name got tossed about. Pretty much just like you describe with the suits and hats.

I was pretty young as well but I don't remember much intimidation at Mills Tavern back then. It might have been a year or two after the bikers left - I don't know. I do think that the musicians were doing coke in the back room between sets. My cousin and I just nursed our beers.

I don't remember exactly when the bikers moved away, but I'm pretty sure they were roaring down Bleecker all through the 80s. In any event, by the time i was old enough to hang out in bars it was mostly elsewhere. My underage drinking was a place called Adam & Eve.

The only Bleecker St. spot I spent any real time in was the Village Corner. There was a blind piano player there named Lance Hayward who was there for decades, and he was pretty amazing, very Art Tatum like. I started checking him out regularly IIRC .ca. 83 or 4.
John

[Larry Feldman]

I saw Stanley Jordan at a Music Therapy conference in Southern California. He jammed with a violin player on Autumn Leaves. He swung so hard that night that I wanted to throw my guitars off a cliff. After I talked to him, he made me realize so graciously that there's so much guitar out there, and that his method was only one way of doing it. Very nice man, and studied music therapy too. Glad I didn't toss my guitars.

[FuseHead]

Of course I was blown away when I first heard him.... So I had to learn at least a couple of his tunes. All I can say is wow. Figuring out some of his stuff did have some good benefits for me though, Once considered impossible tapping runs by various artists like Steve Via and Joe Satriani seemed completely do-able after working out some serious Stanley Jordan.

[JGinNJ]

Since people are swapping Stanley Jordan stories, I guess it was about '82-83 my buddy & I went to the Vanguard- it was so packed we couldn't get all the way down the stairs. It sounded like a band of guitarists, but we couldn't see- it was just Stanley.

I moved to the Trenton area a couple years later, turns out my girlfriend, who was into the jazz scene, knew him because he was around Princeton.

Much later in life, my current wife's friend is good friends with him, a year or so ago she had a party he came & played at. Wish we'd been invited, somehow I've never met him!

[charlieparker]

I got to say this thread sells short how great Stanley is. The tone on Magic Touch, his first album, is amazing. I know it isn't straight ahead but it's some of the best guitar playing I've ever heard.

[jim777]

im sure we crossed paths. I was in Manhattan every day from 82 through 85. I worked on Park Ave and 23rd. On the weekends I stayed in Grammercy Park with friends who lived there. I lived there for a couple of months too. It was good times.
Thanks buddy. Joe D

Funny, I worked at 23rd and Park from '98 to 2015, then 26th and Park from '16 to 20, now 32nd and Park lol

[deacon Mark]

This is any old thread but I have strong opinions so I might as well give mine. I don't care for the sound it is very 2 dimensional and I don't see him as a guitar player to any great extent. He certainly is a talented musician but frankly just play the keyboard and be done with it. Being an acoustic archtop player foremost what he does as zero interest of mine.

[Max405]

Funny, I worked at 23rd and Park from '98 to 2015, then 26th and Park from '16 to 20, now 32nd and Park lol

It was destiny bro!
JD

[RobbieAG]

The way he plays the guitar is amazing and very original. I've seen him live and have one or two of his albums. But as many others have said, I'm not crazy about the tone. That and the music taken as a whole falls short of what it would be with separate instruments playing it.

[SandChannel]

I find it totally shocking that a lot of conservative archtop playing bop fans are finding little interest in someone trying something different.

[Alter]

You have to give players like Stanley Jordan and Charlie Hunter a lot of credit for their originality and for advancing the instrument the way they did.

I have albums of both. I too am not concerned whether it's one, two or three people playing, I just listen to the music. And they both sound very original. Especially Charlie Hunter, when he plays a regular guitar Joe Pass style, he's incredible! And what a groove he's got!

[wintermoon]

Jordan and Hunter are certainly original but not sure they really advanced the guitar.