Phil Lesh welcomes guitarist Stanley Jordan as the latest new participant in his never-ending “Dark Star” jam in Episode 7 of his ongoing Darkstarathon, and the results are one of the most thrilling performances of the series so far.
Like previous episodes, the jam picks up where the last one left off, so the video begins with the Episode 6 lineup featuring North Mississippi Allstars’ Cody Dickinson and Luther Dickinson alongside Darkstarathon regulars Stu Allen, Holly Bowling, Grahame Lesh, and Elliott Peck. Ethereal sounds from the end of the group’s jam transition smoothly into spacey, psychedelic improvisation by the new lineup, which places the 84-year-old Grateful Dead bassist among Jordan, Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz (ALO), Jason Crosby, John Molo, Grahame Lesh.
Lebo plays pedal steel rather than guitar at the start of the instrumental jam, which, combined with the unique sound of Jordan’s tapping-heavy style, Grahame Lesh’s guitar, and the senior Lesh’s singular bass melodies, makes for an extremely rich sonic smorgasbord. The band winds its way through quite a far-out improvised medley, with brief allusions to “West L.A. Fadeaway”, “Scarley Begonias”, and “I Know You Rider”, before settling in to “Dark Star”.
The session marks one of the first times Jordan has played with Lesh since he launched his own Grateful Dead tribute project, Stanley Plays the Dead. After the jam, the video cuts a conversation among the band where Lesh asks Jordan about his strange technique. Jordan replies that he started out playing piano, and after playing guitar for a few years, he started to miss some of the possibilities of the piano, so he set up his guitar in a way that allowed him to play two-handed chord voicings by tapping along the fretboard.
Jordan then reflects on his experience playing the music of the Grateful Dead with Phil and how his unique sound fits in so harmoniously with the band’s style of jamming.
“I do find that playing with you and playing the Grateful Dead music, this technique comes through especially well,” he says.v”You’ve got a lot of people all doing different things, so when I try to find a niche inside the whole texture, it’s easy for me to find that. With this technique, my tone is so pure that it doesn’t fight with the other instruments. It just has its own little pure, sequestered space, and it comes through very, very easily.”
Finally, the conversation turns appropriately cosmic, touching on chaos theory, the fundamental frequency of the universe, and the volume of the Big Bang (it was only 160 db according to Jordan).
“People talk about music and how it connects to the cosmos and all that, and they always talk about harmony and resonance, things being in harmony. That’s definitely part of it, but they neglect to mention chaos,” Jordan tells the group. “That’s a part of the universe, and it’s an aspect of music as well. In fact, everything grows out of chaos.”
Watch Stanley Jordan join Phil Lesh & Friends in Darkstarathon Episode 7 below.
Phil Lesh is gearing up to headline Terrapin Crossroads‘ Sunday Daydream Vol. 4 this weekend in San Rafael, CA. Click here for more information, and visit the festival site for tickets.
The Clubhouse Session: Darkstarathon – Episode 7 featuring Stanley Jordan
The post Stanley Jordan Joins Phil Lesh For Stellar “Dark Star” Jam, Heady Conversation In ‘Darkstarathon’ Episode 7 [Watch] appeared first on L4LM.
