Charlie Christian (1916–1942)
Charles Christian was born July 29, 1916, in Bonham, Texas, into a musical family. His mother played piano as an accompaniment to silent movies, while his father sang and played both trumpet and guitar. Christian's brothers, Clarence and Edward, also played professionally.
The family moved to Oklahoma City in 1918, and Christian's first instrument was the trumpet, a choice that no doubt helped formulate the horn-style, single-note guitar improvising that later made him famous.
Novelist and family friend Ralph Ellison said that at the age of twelve, Christian “would amuse and amaze us at school with his first guitar — one that he made from a cigar box … playing his own riffs. But they were based on sophisticated chords and progressions that Blind Lemon Jefferson never knew.”
Throughout Christian's early teens, he played in the family band and performed in Oklahoma City clubs. It was there that he first heard and met the great tenor saxophonist Lester Young. The meeting was a seminal moment for Christian.
“Lester Young didn't bring Charlie Christian out of some dark nowhere,” Ralph Ellison commented. “[Charlie] was already out in the light. He may only have been twelve or thirteen when he was making those cigarbox guitars in manual training class, but no other cigar boxes ever made such sounds. Then he heard Lester and that, I think, was all he needed.”
By the early 1930s, Christian doubled on bass and guitar in a band fronted by his brother Eddie and was busy learning solos of Django Reinhardt and Lonnie Johnson. After briefly leading his own band, he played bass and/or guitar with a variety of well-known regional bands.
The second seminal moment in Christian's life was in 1937, when he discovered the electric guitar. The amplified electric guitar was still an experimental novelty, although electric guitarist and trombone player Eddie Durham was already playing it as a solo instrument in Jimmie Lunceford's band. The new invention made the jazz guitar solo a practical reality for the first time. With the exception of Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang, guitarists were part of the rhythm section, strumming chords. Now, guitarists could revel in the volume and sustain provided by an amplifier — in other words, they could produce a sound like a saxophone or trumpet.
Christian and Goodman
Christian quickly realized the potential the electric guitar unleashed, and he soon developed a saxophone style of playing that was reminiscent of his hero, Lester Young.
He got himself a Gibson ES-150 (listed in 1936 at $77.50, including a fifteen-foot cord), and by 1938, he was playing electric guitar in the Al Trent Sextet. By 1939, Charlie Christian's innovative guitar style had won the admiration of many influential musicians in the jazz circuit, including pianists Teddy Wilson and Norma Teagarden. Pianist Mary Lou Williams recommended him to record producer and jazz promoter John Hammond. In August, 1939, Hammond arranged for Charlie to have an audition with Benny Goodman, known at the time as “the King of Swing,” and Hammond's brother-in-law. Goodman, who was white, was not only a great clarinet player, he was also a pioneer in touring with a mixed-race swing band.
Goodman needed some convincing. As Hammond recalled, when Christian arrived in Los Angeles, Goodman was presented with a country bumpkin so to speak. Goodman gave Christian a cursory audition, asking him to comp on “Tea for Two” without allowing him time to plug in his amp. He wasn't impressed.
Christian had been experimenting with amplifying the guitar for several years in an effort to get a saxophone sound. Guitarist Mary Osborne recalled hearing what she thought was a tenor saxophone being played in a club in Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1934 and discovering it was Christian with a microphone attached to his guitar.
Hammond said that he decided to convince Goodman by sneaking Christian onstage later that night during a concert at the Victor Hugo. Goodman angrily launched into “Rose Room,” a number he figured Christian wouldn't know. “After the opening choruses Goodman pointed to Christian to take a solo,” Hammond wrote, “and the number which ordinarily lasted three minutes stretched out to forty-five! Everyone got up from tables and clustered around the bandstand, and there could be no doubt that perhaps the most spectacularly original soloist ever to play with Goodman had been launched.”
Charlie Christian played a Gibson ES-150. Launched in 1936, the guitar was based on the L-50 acoustic arch-top with the addition of a heavy, large bar-magnet pickup and a tone and volume control. He later switched to the newer ES-250.
Goodman was won over. Christian's presence turbocharged the group, and Goodman made the most of the guitarist's new sound. His first studio recordings with the band were in New York City on October 2, 1939, in a session that included “Rose Room,” “Flying Home,” and Christian's memorable solo on “Stardust.” By 1940, he had recorded “Gone With What Wind,” and “Air Mail Special,” which featured snappy lines reminiscent of Django, and he had been voted “Top Guitarist” by
Jam Sessions
The sextet made Christian a star in the jazz world and helped legitimize and popularize the electric guitar as a jazz instrument. Some of Christian's last recordings were made in two after-hours joints in Harlem, in the cutting-edge hothouse environment of Minton's and of Monroe's Uptown House. They are considered by many to be the first recordings that show the 1930s swing style evolving into the fiery, harmonically, and far more rhythmically complex bebop style.
Minton's, on West 118th Street, established by a retired sax player named Henry Minton, was located in a former dining room in the Hotel Cecil. The manager was a fellow saxophonist and former bandleader, Teddy Hill, who hired a rhythm section that included Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke. Jam sessions would sometimes last all night.
Christian was so into the jam sessions that he bought a second amp to leave at Minton's. The band often included Kenny Kersey on piano, Kenny Clarke on drums, trumpeter Joe Guy, and bassist Nick Fenton. Private recordings made by a jazz enthusiast at Minton's reveal Charlie Christian at his most inventive and experimental, as on the extended “Swing to Bop.”
An Early Death
In the summer of 1941, Christian developed the first signs of tuberculosis. He was forced to leave the Goodman band's tour of the Midwest and entered the Seaview Sanatorium on Staten Island. Count Basie's doctor kept an eye on him. Teddy Hill came once a week bearing fried chicken and other goodies, and well-meaning friends sneaked him whisky and dope. He began to improve but found life dull, so one night he slipped out with some friends for off-limits carousing, caught a chill, and died. The date was March 2, 1942. He was twenty-five years old. Christian was buried in a small cemetery in Bonham. Although the exact location of his grave is not known, a marker and headstone were erected in his honor in 1994.
The amazing thing about Christian is that though he recorded for a mere three years, he managed in that short time to influence many generations of musicians. He has been cited as an influence by blues and rock musicians as well as jazz guitarists. His style may lack some of the technical virtuosity of some modern guitarists, but Christian's lively, inventive single-note playing helped popularize the electric guitar as a solo instrument and ushered in the era of Charlie Parker and bebop.
