Les Paul, Stanley Jordan Options

[albertchampion]

the most amazing show was last night's at the iridium.

ordinarily, monday nights are for les paul and his trio. and i had tickets.

but last wednesday, i got an email advising me that les paul was ill and that stanley jordan was going to be taking his place. i could cancel for a refund if i wanted, or i could see jordan instead of les paul. never having seen jordan live, that was fine with me.

show at iridium starts at 8pm. we got there a little after 7 and got the best seats in the house. sometime around 7:30 a woman appeared on stage and started playing with the bass with her back to the audience.

then at some stage a man exited the green room and began to consult with her briefly. the appearance of this man intrigued me, because he was a dead ringer for les paul.

at 8pm sharp. a pianist ascended the stage. the woman took hold of the bass and faced the audience, and this les paul double picked up his guitar, sat down on the stool and started playing like les paul.

after 3 fabulous numbers, the bass player took the moment to tell the audience that everyone was looking forward to les paul's full recovery and return to the stage and that stanley jordan would be substituting for les paul that evening.

my brain fractured. les paul was on stage and had been playing up a storm.

about that moment, stanley jordan and his guitar bumped into me as he entered the club and walked to the green room.

i don't pretend to understand the les paul is ill and not here shtick, but stanley appeared and played with les and his trio, but was given the latitude to do at least a half dozen solos. knock out stuff. one of my friends, a former rnr guitarist, couldn't believe he was seeing what he was hearing. stanley jordan is a mold-breaking guitarist.

an hour set went 1.5hrs, ending with les paul burning down the house.

set ends. we take our time leaving. exiting, i see this les paul "double" standing outside on the curb at broadway and 51st. i went up to him, we shook hands, i told him how much i loved his playing, that this show had been a rare pleasure. i never called him les. he never acknowledged that he was les paul. he just said, "thank you, pleased to hear you enjoyed it".

my friend then went up and said virtually the same things.

then we watched. no one else came up to this "not-les paul". not for an autograph. not to say thnx. it was bizarre. but a great show.

catch him when you can. he still has all his chops. at 94.

and stanley jordan has chops like no one else i have ever seen before.

[dMz]

Les P. ROX the phat azz! (still a DAMN FINE thing, although I've never heard IT live- grrrr...)

[it crawls back off to the cave it does, with the S.R.V.'s it does'es]

[albertchampion]

well, i was back in manhattan for some more jazz.

and decided to catch the les paul trio at the iridium on the 27th of july.

once again, some days after making the booking, i received an email from ticketweb advising me that a mark whitfield was going to be substituting for les paul, who was still ill. and though my tickets were ordinarily not refundable, because of this substitution, they were subject to a refund.

still intrigued by who was playing the guitar with the les paul trio, and deciding to hear whitfield, we went.

getting to our table early, we asked our waitress about les paul...whether he would be playing. her response was that at 94 he was very sick and would not be playing.

i asked her who was going to be playing that black les paul guitar resting on the stool, then. her response, lou paulo, on rhythm guitar[i asked her to spell it].

i didn't know of a "lou paulo". and it struck me as an exquisite oddity that a guitarist with the initials LP was going to be subbing for Les Paul.

stranger still, during the performance[similarly to the last one] lou paulo was not introduced. the guitarist for the les paul "trio" was not introduced[did not introduce himself]. almost as if the "illusion" of les paul's attendance was desired.

i want to say this, i hadn't seen les paul in some years. i think that the last time i caught him he was 85. and appeared amazingly youthful. and played as he had played in the 1960's[with skill and verve].

the only thing that confused me about this guitarist[aka the "non-Les"] was that he didn't wear glasses. other than that, he was an amazing physical substitute for les paul. and he had either rehearsed the milwaukee accent, or he was also from wisconsin. and he used the "guitar" and played it with all the les paul chops perfectly.

eventually, i cornered the manager. he really didn't want to discuss the subject of a les paul substitute, but eventually he admitted that it was a lou paulo leading the trio.

for a musician as skilled as i found this "lou paulo" to be, i found him almost invisible on the internet. eventually, i found this.......

"And then Corey [Christiansen] - this is the first time we've really played together; I think his solo on the first track, "I Got Rhythm", is the highlight of the record. It's pretty cool that he was able to accompany so well in the different styles, and play rhythm guitar, meaning four beats per measure, in the style of the great rhythm guitarist Lou Paulo, who was with Les Paul for years and years."

i am now convinced that it has been a Lou Paulo subbing for Les Paul for over a month. Why no one wants to reveal that publicly mystifies me. for a number of reasons. and you can probably imagine them.

in a very real sense, lou paulo has been impersonating les paul. and i would have to say that has been a deliberate scheme of the management of the iridium. and done very adroitly.

unidentified, lou paulo can portray les paul very convincingly. to the point that you could wonder, as i did, who was playing: "les" or a "not-les".

i am an aficianado. who has seen les over the years. and the lou paulo impersonation was so good, that there was a part of me that said that "les" had been playing[on the other hand, there was part of me that was saying that a bit of "foolery" was being deployed onstage].

i assume that a large percentage of the audience came to hear "les paul", not the "not-les". and that the impersonation persuaded many that they had heard "les" with another "star" guitarist.

now, not that it wasn't a great show. it was. lou paulo is a great player. and stanley jordan goes beyond "great".

mark whitfield has a lot to learn[almost undeserving of a venue]. his performance last week owed everything to lou paulo[the "not-les"].

the invisible guitarist.

next monday, lou paulo's["not-les"] accompanist is scheduled to be bucky pizzarelli. catch that if you can.

bucky is so good that i am tempted to return to manhattan to catch his playing. to hear him live in a club once again before one of us expires.