247 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
247 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
|
|
### ###
|
|
### ###
|
|
### #### ### ### ### ####
|
|
### ### ##### ### ###
|
|
### ### ### ### ###
|
|
### ### ##### ### ###
|
|
########## ### ### ##########
|
|
### ###
|
|
### ###
|
|
|
|
Underground eXperts United
|
|
|
|
Presents...
|
|
|
|
####### ## ## ####### # # ####### ####### #######
|
|
## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ##
|
|
#### ## ## #### # # ####### ## ## ##
|
|
## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ##
|
|
## ## ####### ####### # # ####### ####### ##
|
|
|
|
[ Review: 'Bolero' by Jordan Lee ] [ Dee P Binggeli ]
|
|
|
|
|
|
____________________________________________________________________
|
|
____________________________________________________________________
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
BOLERO
|
|
|
|
1994 release by Stanley Jordan
|
|
By Dee Philipp Binggeli
|
|
|
|
Having come back from a four-year recording and touring hiatus, guitarist
|
|
Stanley Jordan, well-known for his pickless technique of playing with both
|
|
hands on the neck of his guitar, says he is eager to be busy again and jump
|
|
back into the rat race he calls music business.
|
|
|
|
Jordan's latest release, BOLERO, is his debut album for Arista Records.
|
|
On BOLERO, Jordan takes on Maurice Ravel's classic, jazz standards and an
|
|
original composition on which he plays two guitars simultaneously.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The album's opening track, a contemporary take on Ravel's "Bolero," is
|
|
truly a tour-de-force. Grafting the deceptively simple theme onto a
|
|
succession of wildly different musical styles, Jordan creates an amazingly
|
|
colorful rendition that contains all of the original's highs and lows -- as
|
|
well as its quiet, melodically emphasized and chaotic passages.
|
|
|
|
Other gems on this release include:
|
|
|
|
* "Always and Forever," a rapturous version of the Heatwave classic,
|
|
which is a product of Jordan's collaboration with producer Onaje Allan
|
|
Gumbs (who produced Jordan's "The Lady in My Life" some eight years ago on
|
|
the MAGIC TOUCH album).
|
|
|
|
* "Betcha By Golly Wow," once made famous by the Stylistics, and now
|
|
freshly interpreted by Jordan, who craftily links the melody with jazz
|
|
scales in his now-oh-so-familiar style.
|
|
|
|
* Herbie Hancock's jazz funk classic "Chameleon," whose simple, sturdy
|
|
riff Jordan uses to build his complex improvisations. Surprisingly,
|
|
"Chameleon" emerges with a sense of renewed vitality, caused by Jordan's
|
|
energy and sonic daring.
|
|
|
|
But one of the most astonishing feats on this release is "Plato's Blues," a
|
|
Jordan original, dedicated to his mother, who recently passed away and was
|
|
a student of Plato's teachings throughout her life. On "Plato's Blues,"
|
|
Jordan plays two guitars simultaneously -- one with his right hand, and the
|
|
other with his left. Playing live. No overdubs. Nevertheless, Jordan is
|
|
able to create a full sound, with leads and walking bass lines, all by
|
|
himself. The intriguing thing about this tune is the fact that the lead
|
|
part always knows where the rhythm (or the bass) is at any given moment. So
|
|
to Jordan this must feel like playing with a twin brother who knows exactly
|
|
what the other one is going to do next.
|
|
|
|
This year, Jordan will tour not only the U.S. but also South America and
|
|
parts of Asia. While taking a breather from touring, Jordan found time to
|
|
explain what BOLERO is all about.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: YOU JUST RECENTLY SWITCHED FROM THE MORE SERIOUS, JAZZ-ORIENTED BLUE
|
|
NOTE LABEL TO ARISTA RECORDS. HOW DID THAT GO?
|
|
|
|
(Stanley Jordan:) "Well, I tell you the reason why I did it was that I felt
|
|
that Arista had more resources as far as the marketing goes. Blue Note had
|
|
a very small amount of capital that they had to work with for promotion.
|
|
And even though I liked working with the people there, I had to make a
|
|
decision that they were only so far that they could take me as far as the
|
|
access of my music to the listeners. So that's why I had to make the
|
|
change."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: WHEN YOU REFER TO MARKETING, DO YOU MEAN TO SAY THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO
|
|
REACH A LARGER AUDIENCE, PERHAPS DIFFERENT PEOPLE?
|
|
|
|
(Stanley Jordan:) "Both. My feeling right now is that I haven't reached the
|
|
limit of the number of people who would appreciate my music if they heard
|
|
it. So that shows me that there is more space out there where I can
|
|
experiment to. Even things like going to some of the other countries, and
|
|
all of that, is part of it."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: I'M CURIOUS: I HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO BOLERO VERY INTENSELY. HOW MUCH OF
|
|
A SAY DID FOR INSTANCE ARISTA HAVE IN THE THINGS THAT YOU PUT ON BOLERO?
|
|
|
|
(Stanley Jordan:) "They make suggestions, and their suggestions mostly come
|
|
from a marketing standpoint, because that's what they know. That's their
|
|
expertise. And they don't make any bones about it. They don't try to hide
|
|
it. They'd say, 'This is what we think would help you to get the music
|
|
out.' So basically it is up to me to follow their suggestions or not.
|
|
"Because the marketing aspect is important to me, what I'm going to do
|
|
is figure out if their suggestions make sense to me. How can I incorporate
|
|
that and still stay true to what I want to do musically? It's kind of on me
|
|
to do that, because if I don't want to take that challenge on, then I don't
|
|
have to. At the same time, I want people to hear the music, too. There's a
|
|
lot of stuff that I play. I have a lot of diverse interests in music. I
|
|
don't feel that the be-all and end-all of being a musician is fame, or
|
|
money, or recognition...I'm happy to play. Even if nobody knew about me, I
|
|
would still do what I do, because it satisfies me.
|
|
"So if there is any aspect of it that I feel I can put out to the
|
|
market, then I'm going to put that out. And if there is some aspect in my
|
|
music that I don't really feel is marketable, I don't feel like very many
|
|
people are interested in, then I don't really have that much incentive to
|
|
put it out. I still do it, but I might not be so likely to put it out."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: YOU SAID IT WAS A CHALLENGE TO TAKE ARISTA'S SUGGESTIONS AND COMBINE
|
|
THEM WITH YOUR IDEAS. WAS IT VERY HARD?
|
|
|
|
(Stanley Jordan:) "To give you an example, they recommended the idea of
|
|
doing an album of standards. I've done that before, so I didn't really feel
|
|
like I needed to do it again for my own sake. But from a marketing
|
|
standpoint, if there's going to be new people listening to my music, then
|
|
it would be good for them to be able to kind of catch up-because for the
|
|
last six or seven years I've been concentrating on standards.
|
|
"So that's where I've been, in a way, so it would be good for the new
|
|
people to catch up with where I've been. Then when I move to the next
|
|
thing, they have some background on where my music is coming from. So
|
|
there's an area where I felt that I could incorporate their suggestions, as
|
|
long as I felt that the standards would get across all the things that I
|
|
wanted to do musically.
|
|
"BOLERO, for example, even the idea of taking "Bolero" [Ravel's original
|
|
composition] and approaching it the way we did, there's a lot of space in
|
|
there for expressing a lot of the different aspects of my music. Probably
|
|
my biggest concern on a career level is not getting pigeon-holed. For me
|
|
that would be a disaster, even if it was in one of my favorite styles of
|
|
music, say straight-ahead jazz. Even if it was that, I wouldn't want to be
|
|
pigeon-holed in that, because that's not the only thing that I want to do.
|
|
"So I think that the BOLERO gave me a chance to kind of stretch out and
|
|
explore a lot of different sides of what I want to do. That's an example
|
|
where I could use their suggestion, but still musically I could take it
|
|
into a lot of different directions that made sense for me. That's nice."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: ONE MUSIC CRITIQUE ACCUSED YOU OF BEING TOO SAPPY, TOO MAINSTREAM ON
|
|
BOLERO, DEVIATING TOO MUCH FROM YOUR EARLIER COMPOSITIONS.
|
|
|
|
(Stanley Jordan:) "That sounds like two different things. One thing is that
|
|
they didn't like the emotional tone of the music, because there is a lot of
|
|
romantic stuff on the record, and maybe they weren't really looking for an
|
|
album that addressed that. The other thing is about the idea of my own
|
|
compositions versus other people's compositions. One record doesn't say it
|
|
all for me. There is no way I can put everything I do into one record. So
|
|
there is always going to be something left out.
|
|
"Sometimes what I try to do -- I did an album called MAGIC TOUCH and
|
|
another one CORNUCOPIA -- where I really tried to put a lot of the stuff I
|
|
was doing into the record. Then I've had other records, I did one called
|
|
LYING HOME, for example, where I said, 'Forget it. I'm not even going to
|
|
try and do that. I'm going to take one idea, and I'm going to really
|
|
explore that, instead of trying to do a little bit of everything.' And this
|
|
record [BOLERO] has a little of both worlds, because in a way the record
|
|
really has a focus.
|
|
"It's got funky tracks, and it's got romantic ballads, and it doesn't
|
|
have a lot of complex harmonies. It doesn't have a lot of weird time
|
|
signature changes. It emphasizes expression, melodic nuances, phrasing,
|
|
dynamics and stuff like that, which has really been the main focus
|
|
of my development for the last ten years."
|
|
"I used to be crazy about making the music as complicated as I could.
|
|
And a lot of people, including jazz musicians, including my classical
|
|
composition professors at Princeton, told me that they thought that I
|
|
needed to slow down and learn how to play more expressively. I thought they
|
|
were right, and ever since before I started making records, that's been my
|
|
main focus, to play expressively. So since that's the phase I'm going
|
|
through, that shows up on my records.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: YOU SAID THAT YOU WANTED TO GIVE PEOPLE A CHANCE TO CATCH UP WITH YOU ON
|
|
THIS ALBUM, AND THEN MOVE ON TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
|
|
|
|
(Stanley Jordan:) "The next album is going to be all, or almost all, my own
|
|
compositions. I feel like I've done this standards thing enough. I felt
|
|
like I kind of had a point to make with that, 'cause although I love the
|
|
older standards, I felt that I could make a contribution by bringing up
|
|
some of the more recent songs and be coining them to standards. I'd like to
|
|
see a new generation of jazz musicians taking the newer repertoire, like
|
|
the 60s and 70s for example, and using that as vehicles for improvisation.
|
|
So that when you go to a club to sit in, you can play I Can't Get Started,
|
|
but you can also play Always and Forever as a jazz tune. So I would like to
|
|
make some contributions to that. That's one of the things that I've been
|
|
doing, and I think I made that point, and I feel like I can move on now."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: YOU ONCE MENTIONED THAT THE MUSIC BUSINESS COULD MAKE YOU A SLAVE. HAS
|
|
THAT HAPPENED RECENTLY?
|
|
|
|
(Stanley Jordan:) "I felt the basic thing in the music business is that
|
|
everybody is in such a hurry, and there is this incredible desperation,
|
|
like 'We've got to get the product out now. Things are changing real fast.
|
|
We have to keep up with all these changes.'
|
|
"I just don't feel that people are going to forget me. I just don't feel
|
|
that people are going to forget me. I feel that if what I'm doing really is
|
|
valuable to people, then I think they are going to want to remember it. So
|
|
I don't really feel that I have to be in such a rush. But what happened was
|
|
that I did get caught up in the rush, because that's the way that
|
|
environment is.
|
|
"So I felt that the best way for me to get my life back is for me just
|
|
to get out of it for a while and just sort of not really even participate
|
|
in it as much as I used to. What was great about that was it gave me a
|
|
chance to get back to a lot of other things that are important in my life,
|
|
that I was neglecting, like my family, my spiritual development, and I'm
|
|
interested in a lot of other things besides music, and it gave me a chance
|
|
to pursue and study some other things I'm interested in. So that was all
|
|
really good for me.
|
|
"I changed my diet. I'm vegetarian now. I feel really good, because
|
|
I took the time out to work on myself -- rather than being out there
|
|
surrounded by people who are always trying to take and take and take what
|
|
they can from my talent. Now I feel really rejuvenated. Now I feel like I
|
|
really want to get out there again. I want to jump in the rat race and be
|
|
really busy and everything going crazy...I started to miss that."
|
|
|
|
|
|
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dee Philipp Binggeli is a writer, music-addict and
|
|
multimedia enthusiast who lives in Salt Lake City. For more information
|
|
about this and other reviews, interviews and full length articles (or to
|
|
leave comments, questions and suggestions) e-mail to: dagomar@aol.com
|
|
|
|
1994 by e-News Media, Salt Lake City.
|
|
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
uXu #207 Underground eXperts United 1994 uXu #207
|
|
Call THE KUNGFU THEATRE -> +1-401-351-5345
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|