Hi, my name is Nathan from JazzGuitarLessons.net and you're listening to Album Deep Dives.
During this episode we will explore the artistry of one of the fathers of jazz guitar and, arguably, of electric guitar itself: Charlie Christian. We will do this by analyzing the record “The Genius of the Electric Guitar”, released in 1987. If you have listened to other episodes of Album Deep Dives, this name should sound familiar, as most of the guitar legends we have been exploring have been influenced in one way or another by Charlie Christian; starting with Wes Montgomery, arguably the next gigantic innovator of jazz guitar right after Charlie and his contemporary Django Reinhardt. Wes stated that Christian was his main influence and that he learned most of his recorded solos by memory.
As usual, let’s start with some background information about him. Charlie Henry Christian was born in Texas, on July 29, 1916, and moved shortly after to Oklahoma City. Virtually all his family played a musical instrument, with his mom and dad being proficient at piano and trumpet respectively. Charlie began taking formal guitar lessons in 1933 with Ralph Hamilton, and one year later, he secured his first professional job as a musician playing bass with the Alphonso Trent band. One of the pivotal moments in Charlie’s life would be his encounter with Count Basie’s guitarist Eddie Dunham in 1937. Eddie played a wild and revolutionary instrument at that time: the electric guitar. Charlie fell in love with the instrument right away, and asked Eddie for some lessons. Keep in mind that the electric guitar first came into being around 1935, with Gibson’s first electric guitar marketing in 1936 (the famous E-150 which would become Charlie’s signature guitar), so this must have been a truly shocking moment for Charlie. This event is so relevant because the electric guitar was the tool that allowed Charlie Christian to become the legend he is considered to be now. Not to take any credit away from his hard work and talent, but before the invention of this instrument, guitarist had a really hard time standing out sonically against bass, drums, horns, and piano. Amplifying the sound of the guitar allowed the instrument to take the limelight and enabled geniuses like Charlie to develop their sound freely. In 1939, Charlie was hired to play with the Benny Goodman sextet, and he would record all his revolutionary material from 1939 to 1942 with them. Another part of Charlie’s career that is important to mention is that he was part of the legendary Minton’s Playhouse jams in NYC. These jams would be instrumental in the development of Bebop, with names like Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, and Dizzy Gillespie all sharing the bandstand.
[music clip “Rose Room” 00:00 – 00:25]
“The Genius of the Electric Guitar” is an album released in 1987 under the Columbia label that contains a compilation of songs recorded between 1939 – 1941, all with different configurations of Benny Goodman groups. These recordings were done during the peak of the swing era, and this came with certain limitations. Swing was the mainstream music of that time, and it was very much tied to dancing, so the songs had to appeal to this specific audience. This is why much of the vocabulary we will hear Charlie play is very diatonic, and the duration of his solos is always a chorus at most. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as we all know how hard it is to make a convincing statement in just a chorus of blowing, and Charlie does so with superb class. It’s also important to point out that arguably the main contribution of Charlie Christian to jazz guitar is that he brought the guitar as a lead instrument to the centre of the stage. Before him, the guitar was generally a purely strumming rhythmic instrument, and Charlie was very much so the first “guitar hero”, paving the way for the electric guitar to become the feature instrument it has been now for a long time in popular music. So it’s easy to take what he is playing for granted now that we are so used to hearing so many guitarist shred, but keep in mind his sound was one of the very first tastes the general American public had of an electric guitar solo.
Let’s listen to half a chorus of Charlie’s solo in the opening tune of this record “Rose Room” to get an idea of what we just discussed.
[music clip “Rose Room” 01:00 – 01:32]
As we just heard in this excerpt of this famous solo, Charlie plays with really strong time and very clear intention. Next, we'll hear part of his solo over “Seven Come Eleven”, an original tune written by Charlie as well as Benny Goodman. His vocabulary in this record in general is very much rooted in the swing tradition, highlighting the changes very logically and melodically. We can also start to hear a glimpse of some more chromatic approaches during the bridge of “Seven Come Eleven”, which would be one of the major characteristics of the bebop language to come. Let’s listen.
[music clip “Seven Come Eleven” 00:45 – 01:18]
Now, the next example will not feature Charlie as a soloist, but rather as a part of the ensemble. During the arrangement of Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton’s original “Till Tom Special”, Charlie’s guitar is used as a lead melodic instrument, harmonizing the melody with the vibes and clarinet. Again, let’s remember that Charlie is one of the pioneers of the electric guitar, which allowed the instrument to achieve the same volume as the rest of the instruments in the band. In fact, this blending in melodically with the ensemble was one of the main reasons why Charlie got the gig playing with Goodman in the first place. The story goes that Benny was not very impressed by Charlie when he accompanied the band with an acoustic guitar during his first audition for the group. But a bit later, Charlie’s producer sneaked him into a jam with Benny Goodman’s band, and Charlie was able to show his chops with the electric guitar. He matched almost every melody and riff Benny played on his clarinet, and he was hired on the spot.
[music clip “Till Tom Special” 00:30 – 01:00]
Now that we have an idea of how Charlie sounds, let’s delve a bit deeper into his playing style. I didn’t really mention Charlie Christian’s influences before, but now would be a good time to do so. His biggest influence by far was Lester Young, an incredible saxophone player and an immense figure in jazz history. As I said, Charlie popularized the guitar as a lead instrument, and to do so, he became famous at improvising single note lines. There were not many examples of this type of playing at the time, especially because of the purely strumming rhythmic role the guitar previously held, so Charlie started emulating horn players for inspiration, in particular Lester Young. Charlie Christian would buy all the Count Basie records with Lester Young on them and learn all of his solos by memory. In the following excerpt of Count Basie and Benny Goodman’s tune “Gone With ‘What’ Wind”, we can hear a clear example of this. Charlie uses bends, slides, and slurs, to phrase his lines and give them more expression and excitement, just like a saxophone player would.
[music clip “Gone With ‘What’ Wind” 00:53 – 01:22]
Another particular characteristic of Charlie Christian’s playing is his use of fast arpeggio runs to delineate the changes. Even if Charlie’s dexterity seems standard in today’s context, it's important to keep in mind all of these resources were innovations displayed primarily by him and by legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt. Charlie’s dexterity and time are impressive, and he appears to be using sweep picking for certain runs, which can seem surprising given the novelty of the instrument at the time. Most guitar enthusiasts date the origins of sweep picking to Les Paul, Chet Atkins, and Tal Farlow, in the 1950s, but I think with this example of Charlie’s playing over Benny Goodman’s “Breakfast Feud” we can clearly listen to an earlier example of this technique.
[music clip “Breakfast Feud” 01:54 – 02:19]
Another important example to point out is that of Charlie’s solo on “I Found A New Baby” by Palmer and Williams. Here we can listen to a much more chromatic approach to his lines. It is true that the best representation of Charlie’s imagination and chops is perhaps found in the impromptu recordings made at the famous Minton’s Playhouse jam sessions. This is because there were no time constraints during these jams, and no need to cater to a specific audience, so the musicians could stretch their legs—develop their solo chorus after chorus, if you will. Nonetheless, the solo we are about to listen to stands out because it summarizes this new chromatic language that would later become a major characteristic of bebop, into a chorus of blowing. Pay close attention to how Charlie phrases his lines and where he places the chromatic approaches and enclosures. We can very clearly start to hear the use of bebop passing tones and more complex harmonic ideas.
[music clip “I Found A New Baby” 00:44 – 01:22]
The last example I’d like to show you is Charlie’s famous feature tune with the Benny Goodman Orchestra “Solo Flight”. Yes, that’s right, this tune is pretty much a giant guitar solo backed up by a full jazz orchestra. If this is not enough proof of Charlie being the first guitar hero, I really don’t know what is. During the two and a half minutes of this track we can hear Charlie’s great phrasing and just how relaxed and confident he was about his improvising. He was on a different level than most improvisers of his time, and it’s a huge gift for us all that enormous figures such as Benny Goodman recognized his talent and decided to showcase it with opportunities like this one.
[music clip “Solo Flight” 01:17 – 02:03]
I hope these examples have been helpful in contextualizing Charlie Christian’s immense contributions to jazz guitar. It is incredible to realize what a huge impact he had with virtually only three years of his professional music career. He was a player that built his way to the top extremely fast with his innovative solo vocabulary on guitar, and that would have, in no doubt, stayed up there if he hadn’t passed away so young.
If you are curious to explore more of Charlie Christian’s playing, he has an extensive recording portfolio with the Benny Goodman groups. Some highlights are “Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall”, and “Charlie Christian Live! With the Benny Goodman Sextet”. Another fantastic record is “Charlie Christian/Lester Young Together”, a compilation of songs that Charlie played together with his hero. This album unfortunately is very hard to find, even on the internet. Lastly, there are a number of releases containing some of the Minton’s Playhouse jams which are incredible to check out. Here we can hear the early stages of bebop, and like I mentioned before, Charlie playing without any constraints. They are truly special and historic recordings.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Album Deep Dives featuring the first true guitar hero, Charlie Christian. My name is Nathan, and I've been your host for this episode. I really hope you’ve enjoyed it, and I'll see you soon in the next episodes, which you can find in your Concierge Learning Path for your Jazz Guitar Mastery program. Until then, happy shredding!
