Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site ada-uts.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!think!ada-uts!wayne 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 References: <626@h-sc1.UUCP> Lines: 39 Nf-ID: #R:h-sc1:-62600:ada-uts:22300030:000:2153 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