Prior to moving to the South in 1991, Jordan's father Dennis was a freelance artist and blues guitarist in San Francisco. Upon arrival in rural Georgia, Dennis found that his style was best suited to black gospel music, joining a band called The Tears of Joy and performing in small African-American churches across Georgia and Alabama. When Jordan was 11, he joined the band as an organist. This experience was the subject of his first student film project, a short documentary entitled "I Wanna Be Ready: Gospel, The Blues, and the Rural Black Church Experience".