Living in southern Vermont and playing throughout the northeast, Derrik Jordan has sung national jingles, worked with many bands and has had his songs recorded by other artists, but what really excites him is writing, recording and performing his original music for people. “Creating live music is a sacred trust. That moment of ecstatic communion when performer and audience become one is one of life’s greatest experiences,” says Jordan.
As a recording artist, award-winning singer-songwriter and composer, multi-instrumentalist (electric violin, percussion, guitar and piano), producer and teacher, Jordan is used to wearing a lot of hats. “Brazilliance – Everyone Loves Brazil,” a 29 track double CD, showcases the best of his original sambas and bossa novas written over the past 3 decades in the classic and timeless Brazilian style. It contains a new recording of his song “Share Your Love,” first released by Angela Bofill in 1978 on her debut album for Arista Records.
“Expecting A Miracle,” an acoustic-pop-soul CD he co-produced with Tom “T-Bone” Wolk (Hall & Oates, Saturday Night Live Band), features top NYC musicians Marc Shulman and Ben Wittman on guitar and drums. “Speak Through Me” from the CD was awarded 1st place (Gospel-Inspirational) and 2nd place overall out of 32,000 songs in the 2004 USA Songwriting Competition, the world’s leading international song contest.
His CD “Touch The Earth,” an environmentally themed concept album, was produced by Jordan and he sings and plays most of the instruments on it. The songs are recorded in a variety of world music styles (reggae, afro-pop, samba, salsa and funk). “Something’s Gonna Change” from the CD won top honors as 2002 Reggae Song of the Year from Just Plain Folks, the world’s largest songwriter organization.
He has released two CDs under the name SuperString Theory (including 2007’s “SuperString Theory Goes To Senegal”), showcasing his 5-string electric violin in a variety of world fusion settings (African, Middle Eastern and Asian) with exotic instruments like hoddu, balafon, kora, didgeridoo and sitar and featuring award-winning NYC free jazz singer Lisa Sokolov and Ethiopian vocalist Helen Kerlin-Smith.
In 1992, Jordan made his national debut as a recording artist on “Right As Rain,” a CD benefiting the Rainforest Action Network that featured Jerry Garcia and Paul Winter. He has studied percussion with master drummer Milford Graves and composition with Henry Brant at Bennington College. In his journey to further develop his craft he has traveled to Brazil, Trinidad, Ghana and Senegal. He has produced jazz, spoken word, Native American and award-winning folk and children’s independent recordings for others. He performs in many bands including Tony Vacca and the World Rhythms Ensemble, Impulse Ensemble, Zabap!, Simba, Funkytown and Natural History.
His first commissioned world fusion/classical piece for string orchestra and percussion, "Four Unknowns," was performed by the Sage City Symphony in Bennington, VT on February 24, 2008. "Sky Mirror" a piece composed for shakuhachi, string quartet and electric guitar won the Shakuhachi Chamber Music International Prize 2008. The Vermont Symphony Orchestra commissioned him to write a piece for their 2009 Made In Vermont Fall Festival Tour, which was performed in 10 venues around Vermont in the fall of 2009.