I can still remember the first time I heard Stanley Jordan play Stairway – it was magic. Over the years I’ve seen and heard many incarnations of Stairway from him and this relatively recent one is perhaps the cleanest and clearest showing his genius on the guitar I’ve heard. The fact that he’s kept Stairway in his repertoire all these years is a real testament to his love for the song but also recognizes that musical performance is not like collecting baseball cards. You don’t just tick off the box and move on to the next. You form life-long relationships with pieces of music. That’s what Stanley is showing us here.
Stanley is an artist in the midst of an undefined transition of self* so I’d be curious to know how this has affected his repertoire and how it has influenced his arrangements and performances in general. If this version of Stairway is typical in reflecting those I’d say he’s playing with a more chaotic beauty, but equally a clarity I’ve not heard from him before. I wish I could jump ahead five years from now and listen to how he plays Stairway then.
There are lots of older and equally compelling performances of Stairway from Stanley on YouTube. I’ll leave those up to you to find. Some notable ones have him playing with a full band and using multiple guitars at once (check those out for sure). Enjoy.
*Out of respect for Stanley I did some research on his transition. At this point he has not specifically defined it as a gender transition for himself and has not expressed any desire for specific pronouns to be used (that could change). Stanley is a unisex name and is all the identity Stanley needs for himself right now.
Feature Image Credit: Stanley Jordan by U.S. Consulate Vladivostok by CC BY-ND 2.0