That Magic Touch

Stanley Jordan was about to play The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and with seconds go before cameras rolled, the sound wasn’t coming out of his guitar. His guitar tech was sweating bullets. Was he able to hit his mark? And what lesson did he learn from the experience? 

In this second episode of Season 2 of "Composers & Computers," Jordan talks about his time at Princeton, including his work with two of his mentors, who were big names in the field of electronic music: Milton Babbitt and Paul Lansky. He discusses the time Dizzy Gillespie’s jaw dropped when Jordan took the stage during a concert at Richardson Hall with Benny Carter.

And he talks about why he went through the tedious process of composing music on a computer at a time that computers didn't easily generate sound. 

“The idea was so thrilling for me, because I had this sound in my head, and I knew that if I could just get the right numbers, create the right code, I knew there was a way to realize that sound," Jordan said. "So I didn’t mind trudging through the snow at midnight. I think sometimes when something is challenging, I think it’s more meaningful.”