Stanley Jordan (born July 31, 1959) is an American jazz guitarist noted for his playing technique, which involves tapping his fingers on the fretboard of the guitar with both hands.

Music career

Jordan was born in Chicago, Illinois, United States. When he was six, he started on piano, then at eleven switched to guitar. He later began playing in rock and soul bands. In 1976, he won an award at the Reno Jazz Festival. At Princeton University, he studied

music theory Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...

and composition with

Milton Babbitt Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his Serialism, serial and electronic music. Biography Babbitt was born in Philadelphia t ...

and computer music with

Paul Lansky Paul Lansky (born June 18, 1944, in New York) is an American composer. Biography Paul Lansky (born 1944) is an American composer. He was educated at Manhattan's High School of Music and Art, Queens College and Princeton University, studying wit ...

. He also took freshman calculus with

Edward Nelson Edward Nelson (May 4, 1932 – September 10, 2014) was an American mathematician. He was professor in the Mathematics Department at Princeton University. He was known for his work on mathematical physics and mathematical logic. In mathematic ...

. While at Princeton he played with Benny Carter and

Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...

. In 1985, Bruce Lundvall became president of

Blue Note Records Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Capitol Music Group. Established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, it derived its name from the blue notes of jazz and the blues. Or ...

and Stanley Jordan was the first person he signed. Blue Note released his album ''Magic Touch'', which sat at No.1 on ''Billboard''s jazz chart for 51 weeks, setting a record.

Touch technique

Normally, a guitarist uses two hands to play each note. One hand presses down a guitar string behind a chosen

fret A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical instrume ...

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 A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nails into wood, to shape metal (as wi ...

) his finger down behind the appropriate fret. The impact causes the string to vibrate enough to sound the note, and the volume can be controlled by varying the force of impact. Jordan taps with both hands, and more legato than is normally associated with guitar tapping. His technique allows the guitarist to play

melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...

and chords simultaneously. It is also possible, as he 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". Jordan's main guitar was built by Vigier Guitars in 1984: 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.

Recording

Among the artists Jordan has worked with are Quincy Jones,

Onaje Allan Gumbs Onaje Allan Gumbs (born Allan Bentley Gumbs, September 3, 1949 – April 6, 2020) ...

, Michal Urbaniak, Richie Cole, The Dave Matthews Band, The String Cheese Incident,

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, and Umphrey's McGee. He has performed at many jazz festivals, including Kool Jazz Festival (1984), Concord Jazz Festival (1985), and the

Montreux International Jazz Festival The Montreux Jazz Festival (formerly Festival de Jazz Montreux and Festival International de Jazz Montreux) is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second-largest annual ...

(1985). In 2004, he released the album ''Dreams of Peace'' with the Italian band

Novecento Novecento is Italian for “nine hundred” and refers to the 1900s (i.e., one-thousand-and-''nine-hundreds,'' which is a near-synonym for the 20th century). It may also refer to: * Novecento (group), Italian music group * Novecento Italiano, a st ...

. The album was produced by Lino Nicolosi and Pino Nicolosi at

Nicolosi Productions Nicolosi Productions is an Italian record label founded by brothers Pino Nicolosi and Lino Nicolosi. They produce various genres including jazz, soul, funk, and Italian pop music. Artists produced include Al Jarreau, Billy Cobham, Billy Preston ...

and was released in the U.S. on Favored Nations. He signed with Mack Avenue Records and released ''State of Nature'' in 2008 and ''Friends'' in 2011. The latter was nominated for an

NAACP Image Award The NAACP Image Awards is an annual awards ceremony presented by the U.S.-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to honor outstanding performances in film, television, theatre, music, and literature. Similar to ...

. He has four Grammy nominations. Jordan made the startup sound for the Macintosh computer models the Power Macintosh 6100, Power Macintosh 7100, and Power Macintosh 8100.

Film and television

Jordan made a cameo appearance in the movie '' Blind Date'' (1987). In 1995 he wrote the score for the short film ''One Red Rose''. In 1996 he wrote the score for the ABC TV afternoon special, ''Daddy's Girl''. Since the mid-1980s he has performed on numerous television shows, including ''The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson'', ''The David Letterman Show'' and ''the Grammy Awards''.

Personal life

Stanley Jordan was briefly married and has one daughter, Julia Jordan, who is a singer and songwriter.

Discography

As leader

* ''Touch Sensitive'' (Tangent, 1982) * '' Magic Touch'' (Blue Note, 1985) * ''Standards Vol. 1'' (Blue Note, 1986) * ''Flying Home'' (EMI-Manhattan, 1988) * ''Cornucopia'' (Blue Note, 1990) * ''Stolen Moments'' (Blue Note, 1991) * ''Bolero'' (Arista, 1994) * ''Live in New York'' (Blue Note, 1998) * ''Dreams of Peace'' (Nicolosi, 2003) * ''Relaxing Music for Difficult Situations I'' (Manifold Music, 2003) * ''State of Nature'' (Mack Avenue, 2008) * ''New Morning: The Paris Concert'' (Inakustik, 2008) * ''Friends'' (Mack Avenue, 2011) * ''Duets'' with Kevin Eubanks (Mack Avenue, 2015)

As sideman

* Muriel Anderson &

Phil Keaggy Philip Tyler Keaggy (born March 23, 1951) is an American acoustic and electric guitarist and vocalist who has released more than 55 albums and contributed to many more recordings in both the contemporary Christian music and mainstream markets. H ...

, ''Uncut Gemes'' (CGD Music, 2003) * Muriel Anderson, ''Wildcat'' (Heartstrings Attached Music, 2005) *

Burt Bacharach Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Gra ...

, ''Blue Note Plays Burt Bacharach'' (Blue Note, 2004) *

Anthony Branker Anthony Branker (born August 28, 1958) is an American musician and educator of Caribbean descent. He was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and raised in Piscataway and Plainfield, New Jersey. He attended public schools in Piscataway and graduated ...

, ''For the Children'' (RPC, 1980) * Dennis Chambers, ''Groove and More'' (Soul Trade, 2013) * Stanley Clarke, ''Hideaway'' (Epic, 1986) * Billy Cobham, ''Drum 'n' Voice Vol. 4'' (Nicolosi, 2016) * Stu Gardner, ''Presents Total Happiness: Music from the Bill Cosby Show Vol. II'' (Columbia, 1987) * Rebbie Jackson, ''R U Tuff Enuff'' (Columbia, 1988) * Charnett Moffett, ''Net Man'' (Blue Note, 1987) * Charnett Moffett, ''Treasure'' (Motema, 2010) * Charnett Moffett, ''Music from Our Soul'' (Motema, 2017) *

, ''Secret'' (Nicolosi, 2008) * Kenny Rogers, ''The Heart of the Matter'' (RCA, 1985) *

Dionne Warwick Marie Dionne Warwick (; born December 12, 1940) is an American singer, actress, and television host. Warwick ranks among the 40 biggest U.S. hit makers between 1955 and 1999, based on her chart history on ''Billboards Hot 100 pop singles cha ...

, ''Sings Cole Porter'' (Arista, 1990)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jordan, Stanley African-American jazz guitarists 20th-century American guitarists 21st-century American guitarists American jazz guitarists African-American guitarists American street performers Princeton University alumni Blue Note Records artists 1959 births Living people Lead guitarists Smooth jazz guitarists Mack Avenue Records artists Arista Records artists