There are lots of talented people in the world, just as there are a lot of curious people. But when you combine prodigious talent, insatiable curiosity and sharp intellect, you get someone special. Put a guitar in his hands, and he could be Stanley Jordan.
Jordan started out playing piano as a child, and it was this piano experience, and the temporary lack of a piano, that inspired him to develop a technique of playing piano parts on guitar. That practice eventually morphed into the guitar style called tapping, and then Stanley Jordan got even more creative. He began to play two parts at once on the same guitar, then, two parts at once on two separate guitars. Now, he can even play keyboard with one hand, and guitar with the other, switching hands when necessary.
Aside from being a tremendous musician, Stanley Jordan is a great learner and thinker. Jordan records albums and tours the world. He’s a long-term masters student in Music Therapy at Arizona State University. He’s a father, an environmentalist and a recreational computer programmer.
Stanley Jordan shares his creative philosophies on music and plays beautiful tunes, in hour two of Bob Edwards Weekend.
-Dan Bloom
Stanley Jordan’s official website
Stanley Jordan’s new album, State of Nature
Stanley Jordan on tour
There was a reference to a book about Music therapy by a teacher he highly respected, Barbara Kroll? Do you have the title?
Wow! An amazing interview with a truly amazing and brilliant person. So beautiful and energizing to hear Stanley gracefully reveal the connections between music and the physics of our natural world; music and the whole person (such as the healing part of us). We desperately need people like Stanley — who use their unique talents and understandings to help us move our society to a more evolved way of living…. a more connected, more sustainable way to be. Thanks so much for talking with each other on the radio, Stanley and Bob. I am re-energized to share my own talents and create a better world! Mary Gifford
Just finished hearing this interview….wish you had a transcript link as every music educator would appreciate and could use your affirmation of the effects of the arts on the brain…Having taught middle school band for 28 years I had to defend my place in the school curriculum so many times …I especially liked what you said about the inverse relationship of music in sonology (sp?)…I would like to read more about this on your web site…the mozart was wonderful….thanks for a great interview! I hope you make a visit to the Atlanta area in the future!