Charlie Christian

• Born: July 29, 1916
• Birthplace: Bonham, Texas
• Died: March 2, 1942
• Place of death: New York, New York

American jazz guitarist and songwriter

With his virtuosic, swinging solos featuring sustained notes and volume levels comparable to wind instruments, Christian expanded the guitar’s role beyond mere accompaniment and popularized the electric guitar.

Member of The Benny Goodman Sextet

The Life

Charles Henry Christian grew up in a supportive African American family, surrounded by music. Both of his parents were involved with music; although his blind father passed away before Christian started playing the guitar seriously, it had been one of his father’s favorite instruments. The family moved to Oklahoma City when Christian was young, and there he was exposed to musical acts that traveled through the important trade hub. Because of segregation, many opportunities were closed to Christian and his friends, but they enthusiastically participated in baseball as well as music. He was encouraged in music by his older brother and other musicians, such as guitarist Ralph Hamilton, who invited Christian to participate in a jam session with touring musicians. That public performance, in which Christian improvised long melodic variations on acoustic guitar, was well received. As his reputation grew into the late 1930’s, he began playing an amplified guitar. When John Hammond of Columbia Records heard Christian play in 1939, Hammond arranged for the guitarist to meet Benny Goodman. During the next two years, Christian became internationally famous, playing and recording with Goodman’s sextet as well as with other musicians, such as Lionel Hampton, and with some of the creators of the bebop style. Christian played incessantly, often going from one engagement to the next in the same evening. Often he would work with Goodman and then travel to a marathon jam session at a small club in Harlem. In the summer of 1941, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was hospitalized. Tragically, Christian died just a few months later.

The Music

From the beginning, Christian preferred playing melodic lines rather than focusing on the strummed chord melodies that were popular at the time. Long before adopting the electric guitar, he developed a strong, energetic technique. Christian created a musical style cultivated by midwestern jazz musicians in the 1930’s, including a driving rhythm with a light chordal texture; an emphasis on extended, competitive solo improvisation over strict rhythmic cycles; and the use of repeated melodic figures (riffs) to build arrangements. Although Christian was aware of the work of his predecessors on acoustic guitar (including Django Reinhardt), his melodic style was more deeply influenced by wind-instrument players, such as tenor saxophonist Lester Young, whom Christian first met when Young was touring in the Midwest with the Blue Devils.

Benny Goodman. Most of Christian’s recorded solos are associated with Goodman’s groups from 1939 to 1941. Although he occasionally played with Goodman’s orchestra, Christian’s most influential solos were recorded with the smaller ensembles: the sextet and septet. In these recordings, the clarity of the thinner textures allowed the tone of the electric guitar to contrast more clearly with the sounds of the vibraphone, the piano, and the other instruments. Along with adding to the midwestern stylistic features of the ensemble as a whole (which are more prominent in the later recordings), Christian introduced dissonant melodic patterns that would become characteristic of modern jazz. He took advantage of the guitar’s natural qualities in adopting leaps of perfect fourths, made easier on the guitar by the instrument’s standard tuning, and also chromatic double neighbor tones, which are facilitated by the guitar’s chromatic fingerboard. In terms of accompaniment, he also changed the rhythmic role of the guitar, which was no longer bound to reinforce the double bass’s steady stream of quarter notes.

Live Sessions at Minton’s Playhouse. While in New York with Goodman, Christian worked frequently with the musicians who created the bebop style, including trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and pianist Thelonious Monk. Most of the musicians played into the morning hours at Minton’s Playhouse and other places in Harlem. Recordings of these early noncommercial experiments are rare, but it is clear that Christian contributed to the development of the genre, especially considering the melodic characteristics of his recorded solos. Fortunately, Jerry Newman, a jazz fan, brought portable recording equipment to Minton’s and captured a few of Christian’s jam sessions with drummer Kenny Clarke, tenor saxophonist Don Byas, and others. Associates remember that Christian was constantly refining and perfecting his style.

Musical Legacy

In the decades following Christian’s recordings, the electric guitar evolved from an obscure oddity to become the dominant sound of popular music. The first major player of the instrument, Christian extended his influence far beyond his own brilliance as a jazz musician. Ironically, the newer, louder genres eclipsed the music that Christian loved, at least in terms of popularity. Within the jazz world, several generations of the best guitarists point to him as a source of style and inspiration. Wes Montgomery, hailed by many as his successor, began by learning Christian’s solos note for note. In addition, Christian played an important role in the development of bebop, the first aggressively modern genre to appear in jazz.

Bibliography

Alexander, Charles. Masters of Jazz Guitar: The Story of the Players and Their Music. San Francisco: Backbeat, 2002. Includes a chapter on Christian.

Broadbent, Peter. Charlie Christian: Solo Flight, the Seminal Electric Guitarist. Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark, 2003. Coverage of Christian’s career, including interviews with musicians and personal accounts of the guitarist, discography, photographs, and appendixes.

Christian, Charlie. Charlie Christian, the Definitive Collection. Milwaukee, Wis.: Hal Leonard, 2003. By Pete Billmann, Jeff Jacobson, and Wolf Marshall, transcriptions, chord symbols, and staff notation and tablature of Christian’s most famous recorded solos.

Ellison, Ralph, and Robert G. O’Meally. Living with Music: Ralph Ellison’s Jazz Writings. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Includes a chapter on Christian, setting him in cultural context.

Goins, Wayne E., and Craig R. McKinney. A Biography of Charlie Christian, Jazz Guitar’s King of Swing. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005. Detailed account of Christian’s life, including commentary on music. With illustrations, bibliography, and index.

Principal Recordings

albums (solo): Live Sessions at Minton’s Playhouse, 1941; Jazz Gallery/C. Christian, 1999.

album (with Benny Goodman Sextet): Slipped Disc, 1945-1946, 1946.