Charlie Christian

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Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian.jpg
Background information
Birth name Charles Henry Christian
Born July 29, 1916
Bonham, Texas, U.S.
Died March 2, 1942 (aged 25)
Staten Island, New York
Genres Jazz, swing
Occupation(s) Musician
Instruments Guitar
Associated acts Benny Goodman
Charles Henry Christian (July 29, 1916 � March 2, 1942) was an American swing and
jazz guitarist.

Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar and a key figure
in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member
of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra from August 1939 to June 1941. His
single-string technique, combined with amplification, helped bring the guitar out
of the rhythm section and into the forefront as a solo instrument. John Hammond[1]
and George T. Simon[2] called Christian the best improvisational talent of the
swing era. In the liner notes to the album Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie
Christian (Columbia, 1972), Gene Lees wrote that "Many critics and musicians
consider that Christian was one of the founding fathers of bebop, or if not that,
at least a precursor to it."[3]

Christian's influence reached beyond jazz and swing. In 1990, he was inducted into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influence.

In 2006 Oklahoma City renamed a street in its Bricktown entertainment district

"Charlie Christian Avenue" (Christian was raised in Oklahoma City and was one of
many musicians who jammed along the city's "Deep Deuce" section on N.E. Second
Street).

Contents
1 Early life
2 National fame
3 Style and influences
4 Bebop and Minton's Playhouse
5 Health and death
6 Instruments
7 Discography
8 Filmography
9 Notes
10 References
11 External links
Early life
Christian was born in Bonham, Texas. His family moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,
when he was a small child. His parents were musicians. He had two brothers, Edward,
born in 1906, and Clarence, born in 1911. All three sons were taught music by their
father, Clarence Henry Christian. Clarence Henry was struck blind by fever, and in
order to support the family he and the boys worked as buskers, on what the
Christians called "busts." He would have them lead him into the better
neighborhoods, where they would perform for cash or goods. When Charles was old
enough to go along, he first entertained by dancing.[4] Later he learned to play
the guitar, inheriting his father's instruments upon his death when Charles was 12.
[5]

He attended Douglass School in Oklahoma City, where he was further encouraged in

music by an instructor, Zelia N. Breaux. Charles wanted to play tenor saxophone in
the school band, but she insisted he try trumpet instead.[5] As he believed playing
the trumpet would disfigure his lip, he quit to pursue his interest in baseball, at
which he excelled.[6]

In a 1978 interview with Charlie Christian biographer Craig McKinney, Clarence

Christian said that in the 1920s and '30s Edward Christian led a band in Oklahoma
City as a pianist and had a shaky relationship with the trumpeter James Simpson.
Around 1931, he took the guitarist "Bigfoot" Ralph Hamilton and began secretly
schooling the younger Charles in jazz. They taught him to solo on three songs,
"Rose Room", "Tea for Two", and "Sweet Georgia Brown". When the time was right they
took him out to one of the many after-hours jam sessions along "Deep Deuce",
Northeast Second Street, in Oklahoma City.[citation needed]

"Let Charles play one," they told Edward. "Ah, nobody wants to hear them old
blues," Edward replied. After some encouragement, he allowed Charles to play. "What
do you want to play?" he asked. All three songs were big in the early 1930s, and
Edward was surprised that Charles knew them. After two encores, Charles had played
all three, and Deep Deuce was in an uproar. He coolly dismissed himself from the
jam session, and his mother had heard about it before he got home.[7]

Charles fathered a daughter, Billie Jean Christian (December 23, 1932 � July 19,
2004) by Margretta Lorraine Downey of Oklahoma City.[7]

Charles soon was performing locally and on the road throughout the Midwest, as far
away as North Dakota and Minnesota. By 1936 he was playing electric guitar and had
become a regional attraction. He jammed with many of the big-name performers
traveling through Oklahoma City, including Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. Mary Lou
Williams, the pianist for Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy, told the record producer
John Hammond about Christian.[8]

National fame

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Benny Goodman playing the clarinet

In 1939, Christian auditioned for John Hammond, who recommended him to the
bandleader Benny Goodman. Goodman was the fourth white bandleader to feature black
musicians in his live band: the first was Jimmy Durante, for whom the clarinetist
Achille Baquet played and recorded in Durante's Original New Orleans Jazz Band
(1918�1920); the second was the violinist Arthur Hand, who led The California
Ramblers, which, from 1922 to 1925, included the trumpeter Bill Moore, who was
billed as the Hot Hawaiian; the third was Ben Bernie, whose band from 1925 to 1928
also featured Moore. Goodman became the fourth by bringing in Teddy Wilson on piano
in 1935 and Lionel Hampton on vibraphone in 1936. Goodman hired Christian to play
with the newly formed Goodman Sextet in September 1939.[9]

It has been claimed that Goodman was initially uninterested in hiring Christian
because the electric guitar was a relatively new instrument. Goodman had been
exposed to the instrument with Floyd Smith and Leonard Ware, among others, none of
whom had the ability of Christian. There is a report that Goodman unsuccessfully
tried to buy out Floyd Smith's contract from Andy Kirk. However, Goodman was so
impressed by Christian's playing that he hired him instead.[7]

Christian, circa 1919 [20699.84.92.11 Frank Driggs Collection at the Oklahoma

Historical Society]
There are several versions of the first meeting of Christian and Goodman on August
16, 1939. The encounter that afternoon at the recording studio had not gone well.
Christian recalled in a 1940 article in Metronome magazine, "I guess neither one of
us liked what I played," but Hammond decided to try again�without consulting
Goodman. (Christian says Goodman invited him to the show that evening.)[10]

He installed Christian on the bandstand for that night's set at the Victor Hugo
restaurant in Los Angeles. Displeased at the surprise, Goodman called �Rose Room�,
a tune he assumed Christian would be unfamiliar with. Unknown to Goodman, Christian
had been reared on the tune, and he came in with his first chorus of about twenty,
all of them different, all unlike anything Goodman had heard before. That version
of "Rose Room" lasted forty minutes. By its end, Christian was in the band. In the
course of a few days, Christian went from making $2.50 a night to $150 a week.[3]

Christian was placed in Goodman's new sextet, which included Lionel Hampton,
Fletcher Henderson, Artie Bernstein and Nick Fatool. By February 1940 Christian
dominated the jazz and swing guitar polls and was elected to the Metronome All
Stars. In the spring of 1940 Goodman let most of his entourage go in a
reorganization. He retained Christian, and in the fall of that year Goodman led a
sextet with Christian, Count Basie, longtime Duke Ellington trumpeter Cootie
Williams, former Artie Shaw tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld and later drummer Dave
Tough. This all-star band dominated the jazz polls in 1941, including another
election to the Metronome All Stars for Christian. Johnny Guarnieri, who replaced
Henderson in the first sextet, filled the piano chair in Basie's absence.[citation
needed]

In 1966, 24 years after his death, Christian was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz
Hall of Fame. In 1989 the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame created its first seven
inductions, which included Christian.[11]

Style and influences

The Gibson ES-150, the guitar model most associated with Christian
Christian's solos are frequently described as "horn-like", and in that sense he was
more influenced by horn players such as Lester Young and Herschel Evans[12] than by
early acoustic guitarists like Eddie Lang and the jazz- and bluesman Lonnie
Johnson, although they both had contributed to the expansion of the guitar's role
from the rhythm section to a solo instrument. Christian stated he wanted his guitar
to sound like a tenor saxophone.[13] The French gypsy jazz guitarist Django
Reinhardt had little influence on him, but Christian was obviously familiar with
some of his recordings.[14] The guitarist Mary Osborne recalled hearing him play
Django's solo on "St. Louis Blues" note for note, but then following it with his
own ideas.[14]

By 1939 there had already been electric guitar soloists�Leonard Ware; George
Barnes; Eddie Durham, who had recorded with Count Basie; Floyd Smith, who recorded
"Floyd's Guitar Blues" with Andy Kirk in March 1939, using an amplified lap steel
guitar; and the Texas Swing pioneer Eldon Shamblin, who was playing with Bob Wills.
[citation needed]

Christian paved the way for the modern electric guitar sound that was followed by
other pioneers, including T-Bone Walker, Eddie Cochran, Cliff Gallup, Scotty Moore,
Franny Beecher, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Carlos Santana and Jimi Hendrix. For this
reason Christian was inducted in 1990 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[15]

Christian's exposure was so great in the brief period he played with Goodman that
he influenced not only guitarists but other musicians as well. The influence he had
on "Dizzy" Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Don Byas can be heard on
their early bop recordings "Blue 'n' Boogie" and "Salt Peanuts". Other musicians,
such as the trumpeter Miles Davis, cited Christian as an early influence. Indeed,
Christian's "new" sound influenced jazz as a whole. He reigned supreme in the jazz
guitar polls up to two years after his death.[16] Earth/Black Sabbath's first
manager Jim Simpson describes the band's first song, "A Song for Jim" as an
�absolute Charlie Christian takeoff.�[17]

Bebop and Minton's Playhouse

Christian was an important contributor to the music that became known as bop, or
bebop. Some of the participants in those early after-hours affairs at Minton's
Playhouse, where bebop was born, credit Christian with the name bebop, citing his
humming of phrases as the onomatopoetic origin of the term.[18]

Private recordings made in September 1939 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by Jerry

Newhouse, a Goodman aficionado, capture the newly hired Christian while on the road
with Goodman and feature Goodman's tenor sax player Jerry Jerome and then-local
bassist Oscar Pettiford. Taking multiple solos, Christian shows much the same
improvisational skills later captured on the Minton's and Monroe's recordings in
1941, suggesting that he had already matured as a musician.[3] The Minneapolis
recordings include "Stardust", "Tea for Two", and "I've Got Rhythm", the latter a
favorite of bop composers and jammers.[citation needed]

Further examples of Christian's bebop playing can be heard in a series of

recordings made at Minton's Playhouse, an after-hours club located in the Hotel
Cecil, at 210 West 118th Street in Harlem, by Jerry Newman, a student at Columbia
University, on a portable disk recorder in 1941, in which Christian was accompanied
by Joe Guy on trumpet, Kenny Kersey on piano and Kenny Clarke on drums.[19]

Christian's use of tension and release, a technique employed by Lester Young, Count
Basie[20] and later bop musicians, is also present on "Stompin' at the Savoy",
included among the Newman recordings. The collection also includes recordings made
in 1941 at Clark Monroe's Uptown House, another late-night jazz haunt in Harlem,
with Oran "Hot Lips" Page. Other recordings include the tenor sax player Don Byas.
The Minton's recordings were long rumored to feature "Dizzy" Gillespie and
Thelonious Monk, but that has since been proved untrue, although both were regulars
at the jam sessions, with Monk a regular in the Minton's house band.[19]

Charlie Christian Avenue, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Kenny Clarke claimed that "Epistrophy" and "Rhythm-a-Ning" were compositions by
Christian, which Christian played with Clarke and Thelonious Monk at Minton's jam
sessions. The "Rhythm-a-Ning" line is heard on "Down on Teddy's Hill" and behind
the introduction on "Guy's Got to Go" from the Newman recordings. It is also a line
from Mary Lou Williams's "Walkin' and Swingin'".[citation needed]

Clarke said Christian first showed him the chords to "Epistrophy" on a ukulele.[21]
These recordings have been packaged under a number of different titles, including
After Hours and The Immortal Charlie Christian. While the recording quality of many
of these sessions is poor, they show Christian stretching out much longer than he
could on the Benny Goodman sides. On the Minton's and Monroe's recordings,
Christian can be heard taking multiple choruses on a single tune, playing long
stretches of melodic ideas with ease.[22]

Christian was just as adept with understatement as well. His work on the Goodman
sextet sides "Soft Winds", "Till Tom Special", and "A Smo-o-o-oth One" show his use
of few well-placed melodic notes. His work on the Sextet's recordings of the
ballads "Stardust", "Memories of You", "Poor Butterfly", "I Surrender Dear" and "On
the Alamo" and his work on "Profoundly Blue" with the Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet
(1941) show hints of what was later called cool jazz.[20][23] Although credited for
very few, Christian composed many of the original tunes recorded by the Benny
Goodman Sextet.[24]

Health and death

In the late 1930s Christian contracted tuberculosis,[25] and in early 1940 he was
hospitalized for a short period in which the Goodman group was on hiatus because of
Goodman's back trouble. Goodman was hospitalized in the summer of 1940 after a
brief stay at Santa Catalina Island, California, where the band stayed when they
were on the West Coast.[21]

Proposed grave site for Christian at Gates Hill Cemetery, Bonham, Texas
Christian returned home to Oklahoma City in late July 1940 and returned to New York
City in September 1940. In early 1941, Christian resumed his hectic lifestyle,
heading to Harlem for late-night jam sessions after finishing gigs with the Goodman
Sextet and Orchestra in New York City. In June 1941 he was admitted to Seaview, a
sanitarium on Staten Island in New York City. He was reported to be making
progress, and Down Beat magazine reported in February 1942 that he and Cootie
Williams were starting a band.[26]

After a visit to the hospital that same month by the tap dancer and drummer Marion
Joseph "Taps" Miller, Christian declined in health. He died March 2, 1942, at the
age of 25. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Bonham, Texas. A Texas State
Historical Commission Marker and headstone were placed in Gates Hill Cemetery in
1994. The location of the historical marker and headstone was disputed, and in
March 2013, Fannin County, Texas, recognized that the marker was in the wrong spot
and that Christian is buried under the concrete slab.[27]

Instruments
Epiphone Deluxe guitar (an acoustic archtop guitar), 1934-1937[28]
Gibson ES-150 guitar (sunburst finish, with dot inlays on the fingerboard), and EH-
150 amplifier, 1937 or 1939 - April 1940[29]
Gibson ES-250 guitar (custom built by Gibson with a natural finish, a Super 400
tailpiece, and bowtie inlays on the fingerboard), April 1940 - February 1941. This
instrument was re-discovered in 2002.[30]
Gibson ES-250 guitar (custom built by Gibson with a natural finish, an L-7 style
neck, and custom inlays on the fingerboard), February 1941 - March 1942
Gibson L-5 guitar (custom built by Gibson with a �Charlie Christian pickup� instead
of a P-90). This guitar was delivered to Christian just prior to his death in March
1942. It was later owned by Tony Mottola.[31]
The bar-style pickup used on the ES-150 and ES-250 became known as the �Charlie
Christian pickup�.

Discography
Christian never recorded as a leader. Compilations have been released of his
sessions as a sideman in which he is a featured soloist, of practice and warm-up
recordings for these sessions, and some lower-quality recordings of Christian's own
groups performing in nightclubs, by amateur technicians.[3]

With Benny Goodman

Charlie Christian with the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra (Columbia)
Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian (Columbia, 1972)
The Genius of the Electric Guitar (Columbia, 1939�1941 recordings)
Solo Flight, with the Benny Goodman Sextet (Vintage Jazz Classics, 2003)
Electric, with the Benny Goodman Sextet and the Charlie Christian Quartet (Uptown,
2011)
With Lionel Hampton

The Complete RCA Victor Recordings, 1937�1949 (Bluebird, 1995)

With others

Guitar Wizard (LeJazz, 1993)

Filmography
2005 Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian
2007 Charlie Christian- The Life & Music of the Legendary Jazz Guitarist (Grossman
Guitar Workshop)
Notes
Hammond, John; Townsend, Irving (1977). John Hammond on Record: An Autobiography.
New York: Ridge Press. ISBN 0-671-40003-7.
Simon, George T. (1971). The Big Bands. ISBN 0-02-872430-5.
Liner notes. Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian. Columbia G 30779.
Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's
King of Swing. p. 7.
Lee, Amy (1940). "Charlie Christian Tried to Play Hot Tenor!" Metronome.
Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's
King of Swing. pp. 12�15.
Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's
King of Swing. pp. 18�20, 137, 399.
Jasinski, Laurie E. "Charles Henry Christian Profile". Tshaonline.org. Retrieved
2012-03-02.
Feather, Leonard: (1960). The Enccyclopedia of Jazz. Horizon Press.
Amy Lee, Amy (1940). "Charlie Christian Tried to Play Hot Tenor!" Metronome.
"Inductees". Oklahoma Jazz Hall Of Fame. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's
King of Swing. pp. 369, 373-374.
Lee, Amy (1940), "Charlie Christian Wanted to Play Hot Tenor!" Metronome.
Feather, Leonard. "Inside Jazz".
"Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee". Rockhall.com. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's
King of Swing. pp. 327�328.
Popoff, Martin (2011). Black Sabbath FAQ. Backbeat Books.
Feather, Leonard (1960). The New Edition of the Encyclopedia of Jazz. Horizon
Press: New York.
"Leo Valdes". Home.roadrunner.com. Archived from the original on 2012-03-15.
Retrieved 2012-03-02.
Centlivre, Kevin (2009-04-16). ""Revisiting Charlie Christian"".
Blogs.myspace.com. Archived from the original on 2010-08-08. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
Broadbent, Peter. Charlie Christian, Solo Flight: The Story of the Seminal
Electric Guitarist.
Spring, Howard (1980). The Improvisational Style of Charlie Christian.
"Jazz". World Book Encyclopedia.
Albertson, Chris. Liner notes. Columbia G 30779.
Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's
King of Swing. p. 344.
Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's
King of Swing. p. 327.
"Burial Info for Charles Christian". TXFannin. Retrieved 2014-03-16.
Broadbent, Peter, Charlie Christian: Solo Flight, ISBN 1872639569, Ashley Mark,
2003, p.48
"Charlie's Gear". 22 January 2015.
"Rare Charlie Christian guitar to be exhibited during Charlie Christian
International Music Festival". 2 June 2010.
 "Finding Charlie Christian's Guitar: Lynn Wheelwright Interview - Jas Obrecht
Music Archive". jasobrecht.com.
Music portal
References
Broadbent, Peter (2002). Charlie Christian, Solo Flight: The Story of the Seminal
Electric Guitarist. Hal Leonard. ISBN 978-1-872639-21-5.
Centlivre, Kevin (1994). "Interview with Jerry Jerome"
Centlivre, Kevin (1999). "Revisiting Charlie Christian".
Feather, Leonard (reprint, 1977). Inside Jazz. Da Capo. ISBN 0-306-80076-4.
Goins, Wayne E.; McKinney, Craig (2005). A Biography of Charlie Christian, Jazz
Guitar's King of Swing. ISBN 0-88946-426-X.
Lee, Amy (1940) "Charlie Christian Tried to Play Hot Tenor!" Metronome.
McKinney, Craig. Charles Christian: Musician.
Savage, William W., Jr. (1983). Singing Cowboys and All That Jazz: A Short History
of Popular Music in Oklahoma. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, pp. 48�51. ISBN
0-8061-1648-X.
Spring, Howard (1980). The Improvisational Style of Charlie Christian. York
University.
Valdes, Leo (1997). Solo Flight: The Charlie Christian Newsletter Leo Valdes.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charlie Christian.
"Charlie Christian". Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Edit this at Wikidata
Charlie Christian, Style Analysis and Solo Examples
Deep Deuce History and photos
Charlie Christian at Find a Grave
Charlie Christian, a biography by C.J Shearn