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Stanley Jordan (born July 31, 1959) is an American jazz/jazz fusion guitarist and pianist.
History
Stanley Jordan was born in Chicago, Illinois. He began his music career at age six, studying piano, then shifted his focus to guitar at age eleven. He later began playing in rock and soul bands. In 1976, Jordan won an award at the Reno, Nevada, Jazz Festival. He earned a BA in music from Princeton University in 1981, where he studied theory and composition with composer Milton Babbitt and computer music with composer Paul Lansky. While at Princeton in 1979 he played with Benny Carter and Dizzy Gillespie.
Jordan was the first artist to be signed by Bruce Lundvall when the latter became president of Blue Note Records in 1985 and, consequently, Magic Touch was the first release (not reissue) of the rejuvenated label. Magic Touch was No. 1 on Billboard's jazz chart for 51 weeks, setting a new record. Jordan also made the startup sound for the old Macintosh computers, Power Macintosh 6100, Power Macintosh 7100, and Power Macintosh 8100.
Jordan has performed in over 60 countries on 6 continents. He has performed at many jazz festivals, including: Kool Jazz Festival (1984), Concord Jazz Festival (1985), and the Montreux International Jazz Festival (1985). During the 1980s Jordan played with Quincy Jones, Michal Urbaniak, and Richie Cole. Stanley Jordan has four Grammy Nominations. His 2011 album "Friends" was nominated for an NAACP Image Award.
Film and Television
Jordan made a cameo appearance in the Blake Edwards movie Blind Date (1987), starring Bruce Willis and Kim Basinger. In 1995 he created the score for the short film "One Red Rose", starring Hill Harper and Victoria Rowell, directed by Charlie Jordan. In 1996 he created the score for an ABC afternoon TV special, "Daddy's Girl", directed by Diane Wynter. SInce the mid 80s he has performed on numerous television shows, including The Tonite Show with Johnny Carson, The David Letterman Show and the Grammy Awards. A more complete list appears below under List of Television Appearances.
The Touch Technique (Two-Handed Tapping)
Normally, a guitarist uses two hands to play each note. One hand presses down a guitar string behind a chosen fret to prepare the note, and the other hand either plucks or strums the string to play that note. Jordan's touch technique is an advanced form of two-handed tapping. The guitarist produces a note using only one finger by quickly tapping (or hammering) his finger down behind the appropriate fret. The force of impact causes the string to vibrate enough to immediately sound the note, and Jordan executes tapping with both hands, and with more legato than is normally associated with guitar tapping. The note's volume can be controlled by varying the force of impact: tapping with greater force produces a louder note.
A helpful analogy to visualize this technique is the distinction between a harpsichord and a piano. A harpsichord produces sound by plucking its strings, and a piano produces sound by striking its strings with tiny hammers. However, while notes produced on a harpsichord or piano sustain after the pick has plucked or hammer has struck, fingers must remain on a tapped note for the sound to continue. This similarity is what led Jordan to attempt such a technique in the first place; he was a classically trained pianist before playing guitar and wanted greater freedom in voicing chords on his guitar.
Jordan's touch technique allows the guitarist to play melody and chords simultaneously. It is also possible, as Jordan has demonstrated, to play simultaneously on two different guitars, as well as guitar and piano.
He plays guitar in all-fourths tuning, from bass to treble EADGCF (all in perfect fourths as on the bass guitar) rather than the standard EADGBE. He has stated that all-fourths tuning "simplifies the fingerboard, making it logical".
Stanley Jordan's main guitar was built by Vigier Guitars in 1988: it is an Arpege model on which Vigier made a flat fingerboard, allowing it to have a very low action (0.5/0.7mm). The low action facilitates the tapping technique.
Additional and Most Recent Work
In 2004, Stanley Jordan released the album Dreams of peace with the Italian band Novecento. The record, produced by Lino Nicolosi and Pino Nicolosi, Nicolosi productions, was released in the USA on the Steve Vai label Favored Nations. After keeping a lower profile from 1995 to 2007, Jordan signed with Mack Avenue Records and released State of Nature in 2008 and Friends in 2011. He has maintained an extensive international touring schedule, including numerous live appearances with jam bands including The Dave Matthews Band, The String Cheese Incident, Phil Lesh, Moe and Umphrey's McGee.
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