"I am so humbled and grateful to all of the wonderful musicians who graced this project. This collection truly speaks to my belief in the integrationist spirit of music. I'd like to move beyond 'fusion' and explore the concept of 'integration.' When you integrate styles, you combine them into something new while still remaining true to the original sources. The same principal holds for our friendships, which require mutual respect. Our friends are a mirror revealing the diversity within us, and at the same time they give us the courage to share our true selves with the world." –Stanley Jordan, “Friends”
It takes the first listen through Katy Perry’s pop hit, “I Kissed A Girl,” to instantly understand Stanley Jordan’s open-minded embrace of all kinds of music, past to present, with ever an eye towards the future. It takes hearing Benny Goodman/Charlie Christian’s hit, “Seven Comes Eleven,” through its winding twists and turns of thready rockabilly-jazz to understand Jordan’s multi-level brilliance in any project he puts his creative mind to.
If Jordan doesn’t sweep every award known to man for his latest Mack Avenue Records release (September 27, 2011), there isn’t any justice in this world. Jordan’s collaborative album, appropriately entitled “Friends,” brings his unique, highly intellectualized, multi-faceted world view together with guest stars in the realm of god-like: guitarists Bucky Pizzarelli, Mike Stern, Russell Malone and Charlie Hunter; classical-jazz violinist Regina Carter; saxophonists Kenny Garrett and Ronnie Laws; trumpeter Nicholas Payton; bassists Christian McBride and Charnett Moffett; and drummer Kenwood Dennard. Some of these participating artists he’s played with, some he’s wanted to play with. All were more than up for the challenge of diving right into some ambitious style integration, a mission of Jordan’s since he first burned up the charts with his two-handed tapping technique.
Together, Jordan and his friends turned out completely deconstructed, reinvented, or simply just plain bedazzled songs from the history books, Top 40, and a few spiritually based originals.
Most established jazz artists tend toward either a diehard loyalty to the classics or fusion forward—oftentimes out of necessity due to some major limitations in skill level.
Stanley Jordan isn’t hampered by any of that.
The accomplished guitarist can go either way in equal measure. He grew up with a deep appreciation and affinity for classical and rock, then gravitated toward jazz, but has never been hampered by and even shied away from labels. It’s been his cross to bear through the 1990s when the entrenched music industry couldn’t figure out what to do with him and tried to pigeon-hole his style into a box.
Critics have questioned Jordan’s taste in music in the past as scattered, unfocused, and hard to pin down. It is this chameleon effect, however, that wins more cross-over audiences than most jazz diehards would care to admit.
A thinking man’s musician, Jordan explores in this breakthrough album the classical, jazz, blues, samba, and pop realms with an ease, a spiritual purpose, and an astounding grasp of technique with feel.
A clear favorite is Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl,” where Jordan plays guitar and piano at the same time, with guitarist Charlie Hunter along for the deconstructed ride. Jordan’s version is recognizable to the average listener on the piano notes early on and at the end. After that, it’s a whole other ball game, where he follows the chord structure (accompaniment), not necessarily the melody, to wondrous effect. That’s where the heart and soul of the jazz explosions — taut guitar and honky tonk tumbling piano — take place, and what Jordan’s is immensely gifted at. Not surprisingly, Jordan raised eyebrows and made a name for himself outside strict jazz circles doing elaborate fusion renditions of pop hits by Michael Jackson (“The Lady In My Life”) and the Beatles (“Eleanor Rigby”). Familiar, strong territory.
Proving it possible to be master of all he surveys, Jordan also pays homage to big band, horn-heavy orchestral romps in his own composition, “Capital J,” with tenor saxophonist Kenny Garrett and trumpeter Nicholas Payton as the stars of the show. It’s pure straight ahead jazz played to Garrett and Payton’s strengths, as Jordan humbly takes a back seat. “So much of the great jazz I grew up with was built on a strong horn line,” Jordan explained. “In the spirit of those great classics, I wrote this tune. Nick's tone is fresh and full of life, and he creates interesting, complex improvisations while still leaving plenty of space. Kenny combines a deep musical knowledge with a natural and effortless facility. My favorite part of ‘Capital J’ was just comping behind the horns.” Jordan’s comping is, comparatively to mere mortals, so fully realized that he nearly steals the show.
Nothing comes close to the bluesy magnificence of “Seven Come Eleven,” in which Jordan jams with guitarists Bucky Pizzarelli and Russell Malone. Their three-part session raises the usually staid, three-note sameness of blues into a whole other level, tapping into the best of outlaw country music and rollicking breezy rock. When they come together in unison, heading towards home, it’s a positive, uplifting, danceable experience.
Jordan and his “Friends” recently earned a 2012 NAACP Image Award nomination as an “Outstanding Jazz Album” (awards ceremony is on February 17) — welcome news right in the middle of an 18-city worldwide album tour (through March 2012), featuring his go-to band mates, bassist Charnett Moffett and drummer Kenwood Dennard, along with special guests.
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