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From: wayne@ada-uts.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Another Greatest Guitarist Candidate
Message-ID: <22300030@ada-uts.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 09:14:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ada-uts.22300030
Posted: Mon Oct 28 09:14:00 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Nov-85 02:17:29 EST
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Nf-From: ada-uts!wayne    Oct 28 09:14:00 1985


I agree that Stanley Jordan is a gifted arranged and composer (I have
his album and have seen him on the talk show circuit) but I would like
to clarify one point:  what he does to the guitar is not unique,
contrary to the promotional media blitz.

Stanley Jordan started out as a normal jazz picker (I think he went to
Berklee, if I'm not mistaken) but one day he attended a demonstration
of a new and innovative instrument called The Chapman Stick.  He liked
the way this instrumented was played, but he couldn't afford the
instrument himself, so he asked the demonstrator how he could do a
similar approac with the guitar.  That's how Stanley learned, and
essentially copied the two-handed tapping technique patented by
Emmett Chapman and is used on The Stick.

If you have never seen or heard of The Stick, it's no wonder, really
because it seems the music world is someone conservative.  It's so
new (it came out in 1980) and it's so radically different some of the
musical media are waiting to see if it's successful or a failure
before they mention anything about it.

You have to see and hear it...when I first heard it (Tony Levin plays
one in the last incarnation of King Crimson, and he also plays it
when he's with Peter Gabriel) I was amazed and awed.  I have since
heard of many others using it, and indeed its popularity is growing.
Alphonzo Johnson plays one.  A band called Kittyhawk has THREE members
playing it.  The bass player for Sting's solo efforts (I only remember
his nickname - The Munch) plays one.  There's one in Bruce Cockburn's
band, and the list goes on... Lately the trend is towards using it in
jazz, because of its similarity towards keyboards.  It is more widely
used on the West coast and its just starting to really be used elsewhere.

It bothers me that the music industry hypes up a mimic, but the true
innovator remains unrecognized.  Stanley Jordan is well-deserving of
his praise, and his huge record sales, because he's indeed talented,
but don't say he's an innovator.  Two thousand Stick players and tens
of thousands of their fans will disagree.

                                           Wayne Wylupski