We'll hear one such tune now, the first studio recording that Charlie Christian made with Benny Goodman:Ĭhristian's swinging, innovative and amplified sound immediately galvanized both listeners and other musicians, and in January 1940, after being on the national scene for just several months, he won DownBeat Magazine's reader poll for best guitarist. Christian was reluctant to leave Oklahoma City, and Goodman was reportedly lukewarm about bringing Christian aboard until a Hammond-arranged appearance on the bandstand led to a legendary, possibly apocryphal 45-minute rendition of "Rose Room." There's no doubt that Goodman was impressed, and soon Christian was both performing and recording with Goodman, often in the context of the small group, and often on tunes that incorporated riffs that Christian had brought with him from Oklahoma City. "The typical Christian solo," jazz critic Martin Williams wrote, "is organized in contrasts of brief, tight, riff figures and long, flowing bursts of lyrical melody and in his best improvisations these elements not only contrast effectively but also, paradoxically, lead to another."Ĭhristian's big break came when jazz impresario John Hammond, hipped to the guitarist's talent by pianist Mary Lou Williams, persuaded Benny Goodman, the so-called "King of Swing," to give Christian a chance at playing with his small group and big band. He began to play an electrified guitar in the late 1930s, and his amplified approach won him a passionate following among area musicians. Nonetheless, it was doubtlessly here that he developed the tuberculosis from which he died.Ĭhristian's father died when Charlie was 12, and he spent much of the 1930s playing with territory bands. It was also alive and exciting, and I enjoyed visiting there, for the people both lived and sang the blues.
Charlie christian transcriptions full#
Although he himself was from a respectable family, the wooden tenement in which he grew up was full of poverty, crime, and sickness.
He spent much of his life in a slum in which all the forms of disintegration attending the urbanization of rural Negroes ran riot. Ralph Ellison, whose novel Invisible Man is considered to be a landmark of 20th century literature, knew Christian growing up and wrote an eloquent remembrance in 1958, evoking the guitarist's origins: He flowered from a background with roots not only in a tradition of music, but in a deep division in the Negro community as well. He and his brothers were taught to play music by their father, who became blind and relied on his sons to guide him to places where he could play for money on the street. "Long, Flowing Bursts Of Lyrical Melody"Ĭharlie Christian was born in Bonham, Texas on Jand grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Charlie christian transcriptions series#
While Christian was not the first guitar soloist in jazz, with just a handful of musicians preceding him-Eddie Lang, Lonnie Johnson, and Django Reinhardt-and not the first to play electric guitar, either-in less than two years this thin, quiet, bespectacled young man made a series of recordings that put him in the echelon of jazz greats such as Lester Young and Charlie Parker, influencing guitarists to this day, and not just in jazz, either in 1990 Christian was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an acknowledgement of his far-reaching impact. The advent of Charlie Christian and his electric guitar changed all that, creating a path to follow for Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, Tal Farlow, George Benson, Barney Kessel, and many others. The acoustic instrument was in danger of becoming lost in the world of large-ensemble jazz. In 1939, the age when swing was king, the guitar was not the thing. On this edition of Night Lights we'll hear his swinging, scintillating solos with Benny Goodman, Thelonious Monk, Lester Young, and other significant artists of his time. In 1939 a young musician named Charlie Christian seemingly came from out of nowhere to become a pioneer of the electric guitar in jazz and help pave the way for the rise of bebop, though he himself would not live to see it.
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