Arlington Jazz Festival – Day 5:
​Stanley Jordan Trio
w/ Wes Wirth and Kenwood Dennard
7:30PM, Sunday, April 12
Regent Theatre, 7 Medford St.
ADVANCE TICKETS

In a career that took flight in 1985 with commercial and critical acclaim, guitar virtuoso Stanley Jordan has consistently displayed a chameleonic musical persona of openness, imagination, versatility and maverick daring. Be it bold reinventions of classical masterpieces or soulful explorations through pop-rock hits, to blazing straight ahead jazz forays and ultramodern improvisational works-solo or with a group, Jordan can always be counted on to take listeners on breathless journeys into the unexpected.. 
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Jordan is the master of a special technique on the guitar’s fretboard. Instead of conventional strumming and picking, Jordan’s innovative “touch technique” is an advanced form of two-handed tapping. While a handful of other players use similar techniques, Jordan’s fluid, multi-layered textures and sheer virtuosity has raised the bar for excellence. However his technique, though impressive, is always a means to a musical end. His music is imbued with a warmth and sensitivity that has captured the imagination of listeners worldwide. More on his personal approach to the technique can be found at https://www.stanleyjordan.com/Technique/starting.html#. 

A classically trained pianist before playing guitar, Jordan wanted greater freedom in voicing chords on his guitar, so he applied piano principles to do so. Jordan’s touch technique allows the guitarist to play melody and chords simultaneously with an unprecedented level of independence. It also allows Jordan to play simultaneously on two different guitars, or even on guitar and piano. He says that “I think of it as a single instrument, but one with a wide range of tonal colors -- that’s why I do it.” One of the many examples of his technique, “Stanley Jordan plays Blues” (Live in London 11/05/2023): https://youtu.be/oF5ByJSU5G4?si=GqnZD0sNt5bHIpcP. But you can also see where Jordan is headed from early on: https://youtu.be/aGoGyGSnVuA?si=4wAjie1CwmeNXOFL.

Visit stanleyjordan.com/ for further background, including Jordan’s explorations into Music Therapy and his Integral Arts Academy. His bass player Wes Wirth posted his gratitude to “guitar master Stanley Jordan, for having me as a member of his trio, and for sharing his integrated arts approach to guitar virtuosity, extraordinary musicianship, incredibly inventive study of harmony, music theory, physics, astronomy, coding, and so much more … and demonstrating/living the dynamic connections between music and other realms.”
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​Wes Wirth is a musician/artist working in the realms of sound, music composition, landscape architecture, horticulture, sustainable agriculture, geometry, sculpture. Doing all he can to heal and unify (mind /  body / heart / spirit) + (air / earth / water / fire) with frequency / vibration, coherence, awareness, love, and getting into the muck! Wes is a prolific composer and band leader, writing powerfully rhythmic and melodic material - his terrain is distinct and resonant. He has supported numerous luminary artists such as Chuck Mangione, King Sunny Ade, Yazhi Guo, David Fiuczynski, Rakalam Bob Moses, Hal Crook, Vernon Reid, Kenwood Dennard, and Stanley Jordan.  
Wes' talent is not limited to the musical realm, with two masters' degrees from Harvard University in landscape architecture and planning, Wes owns and operates Thomas Wirth Associates, a thriving landscape design firm in Boston MA. Wes also makes enormous metal environmental sculptures and is developing an innovative research farm outside of Boston, dedicated to creating a renewable food supply with hundreds of edible plants (fruits, nuts and perennial vegetables). The Farm also grows organic hemp, and has created a line of fine CBD products.
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Kenwood Dennard, having played with the likes of Miles Davis (with whom he won a Grammy), Herbie Hancock and Dizzy Gillespie, Kenwood also pioneered the jazz fusion improvisational movement in the 70’s with his work with Pat Martino (Joyous Lake) and Brand X (Livestock) and later with Jaco Pastorius and the Word of Mouth band and PDB (Pastorius, Dennard and Bullock) and on his original works with Marcus Miller, Stanley Jordan and Vernon Reed.
He is a musical influence for generations of artists and has performed and recorded with many top artists today including Maceo Parker, Pharoh Saunders, Charles Mingus, Harry Bellafonte, Allman Brothers Band, Phish, String Cheese Incident, Derek Trucks, Moe., Sting, Taj Mahal, Warren Haynes,  and many more. Now that he’s retired from his long career as a professor at Berklee College of Music, Kenwood has been touring the world with his friend and long time collaborator Stanley Jordan. This is a great opportunity to see Kenwood live.

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