{"title":"Stanley Jordan","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eStanley Jordan started on classical piano at six, discovered Jimi Hendrix, picked up guitar, and spent years working out how to apply piano technique to the fretboard. The standard guitar technique uses one hand to fret a note and the other to pluck or strum; Jordan’s approach eliminates the second action entirely, both hands tapping and hammering on the fretboard simultaneously. The result is a guitarist who can play two fully independent melodic lines at once, melody in one hand and a complete chord accompaniment in the other, with no strumming, no picks, and no compromise between the two. He developed the technique in isolation, partly because he had very little to reference beyond his own piano training. He was playing in soul and rock bands in his early career, released a self-produced album “Touch Sensitive” in 1983, and was busking in Washington Square Park in New York City when the right person heard him. After a performance at the 1984 Kool Jazz Festival, he opened for Wynton Marsalis at Avery Fisher Hall. Bruce Lundvall, who had just relaunched Blue Note Records, signed Jordan as his first signing in the new Blue Note era. “Magic Touch” (Blue Note, 1985) sold over 400,000 copies worldwide, an extraordinary figure for an instrumental jazz album, spent fifty-one weeks at number one on the Billboard Jazz chart, and was Grammy-nominated. It remains one of the most commercially successful Blue Note albums of the modern era. He recorded four more Blue Note albums through 1991 before moving to Arista and then building his own catalogue.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"stanley-jordan-magic-touch-1985-japanese-blue-note-vinyl-lp","title":"Stanley Jordan - Magic Touch (1985 Japanese Blue Note Vinyl LP)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eStanley Jordan - \u003cem\u003eMagic Touch\u003c\/em\u003e | Vinyl LP, 1985 Japanese Blue Note (BNJ 91001, Toshiba EMI)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe album that relaunched Blue Note Records\u003c\/strong\u003e, with Jordan as the first artist signed by Bruce Lundvall after the label’s revival, spending a record-breaking 51 weeks at number one on the Billboard jazz chart\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eJordan’s two-handed tapping technique\u003c\/strong\u003e produces a piano-like polyphony on the electric guitar, playing melody and harmony simultaneously across solo performances of “Eleanor Rigby”, “‘Round Midnight” and “A Child Is Born”\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eProduced by Al DiMeola\u003c\/strong\u003e and digitally recorded, with Peter Erskine, Omar Hakim, Charnett Moffett and Sammy Figueroa joining on selected tracks\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStanley Jordan was 25 when \u003cem\u003eMagic Touch\u003c\/em\u003e came out, and his technique was genuinely unlike anything else in jazz guitar. He had started on piano at six, switched to guitar at eleven, and spent a decade developing a two-handed tapping approach that allowed him to sound chords and melody lines at the same time, producing the kind of independent voicings that normally require a keyboard. He studied music theory and composition with Milton Babbitt at Princeton and played with Benny Carter and Dizzy Gillespie while still a student. When Bruce Lundvall relaunched Blue Note in 1985, Jordan was the first artist he signed, and this album became the label’s commercial anchor. It topped the Billboard jazz chart for 51 weeks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe programme is split between solo guitar pieces and small-group performances. The solo tracks are where the technique is most exposed: “Eleanor Rigby” opens the album as a solo reading that reveals the Lennon and McCartney harmony in a way that a conventional guitar arrangement could not, and “‘Round Midnight” and “A Child Is Born” (the Thad Jones ballad) are played with a quiet intimacy that suits the material. “Freddie Freeloader” adds Charnett Moffett on acoustic bass and Peter Erskine on drums for a trio reading of the Miles Davis piece, and “The Lady in My Life” (originally on Michael Jackson’s \u003cem\u003eThriller\u003c\/em\u003e) features Omar Hakim on drums and Onaje Allan Gumbs on keyboards. Al DiMeola produced the album and plays a cymbal on the closing “Return Expedition.” The solo material is where the record comes alive. The group tracks are professional, but the solo performances are the reason the album found its audience. This 1985 Japanese pressing is manufactured by Toshiba EMI, licensed from Manhattan Records. Catalogue number BNJ 91001.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Blue Note","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44584495218747,"sku":null,"price":30.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0630\/3203\/3339\/files\/IMG_9179.jpg?v=1792226113"}],"url":"https:\/\/lushliferecords.com.au\/collections\/stanley-jordan.oembed","provider":"Lush Life Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}