Curt's Jazz Cafe

I just heard that Ronny Jordan has passed away. The British guitarist was one of the leading lights of the Acid Jazz movement that caught fire in England in the early nineties and because of his work with Guru and other American hip-hop artists his cool, Wes Montgomery influenced lines were soon heard on many tracks in U.S. clubs as well.

I really dug his first two U.S. releases, The Antidote (his best album) and The Quiet Revolution, which were released at the height of Acid Jazz’s popularity in the U.S. Ironically most people in this country probably know him for a track on The Quiet Revolution that was popularized by a scene on a television show in which Jordan was never mentioned by name. The show is The West Wing and the song is “The Jackal” to which the character “C.J.”(Allison Janney) performs a quirky, yet compelling lip-sync of Dana Bryant’s spoken-word vocal.

Jordan continued to perform and record into the 21st Century but he never again reached the popularity stateside that the last decade of the 20th Century brought him. 

For those unfamiliar with his work, I’ve included a few clips, including The Antidote in its entirety and a couple of cuts of Jordan playing live, showing off his chops.

Rest in Peace, Ronny Jordan

This entry was posted on January 14, 2014 at 7:57 pm and is filed under In Memoriam with tags acid jazz, Acid Jazz movement, ronny jordan, the jackal, the west wing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.