If Charlie Christian Was A Gunslinger . . .

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If Charlie Christian was a gunslinger, there’d be a Whole Lot of dead copycats.

Sure Charles Mingus was referring to Charlie Parker with the “dead copycats” line, but he could have just as well been talking about Charlie Christian. Christian was a pioneering guitar player who was a prime character in the birth of bebop, particularly in the years between 1939-1941, and is acknowledged for transforming the guitar from merely a rhythmic instrument into a line-leading and soloing one.

But innovation does not occur in a vacuum and an ocean away Django Reinhardt was doing his own work playing single note runs, swinging absurdly with his Lester Young-like lyricism. That Django only had three fingers on his chording hand could have something to do with it, necessity being the mother of invention and all.

Is it possible Charlie Christian could have encountered Django Reinhardt? One of Charlie Christian’s closest allies, Teddy Hill, the manager of the after-hours joint Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem, and a bandleader in his own right, would joke, “We’re going to bring that Django over here, and he’ll blow you off the stand.” According to Hill, Christian would just smile and mimic a few typical Django phrases on his guitar. The guitarist Mary Osborne recalled seeing Christian play Django’s version of “St. Louis Blues” note for note before breaking into his own style. A direct Django Reinhardt connection is fascinating but implausible, each other’s innovation occurring independently and concurrently.

The genius of Charlie Christian is not just what he did on the electric guitar but the way he did it, creating long flowing improvisations, repeating mini phrases to build tension, and slowly releasing the valve for the remainder of his solo. Listen for the way he repeats notes or phrases in the first few bars of a solo, rotating back to them in short succession, referencing the song’s theme while pulling away from it. For example, Christian’s solo on “Airmail Special” with Benny Goodman’s band, beginning around :32. Once you’re aware of this dramatic device it’s impossible not to notice in subsequent listening.

Legend has it that Christian never left the bandstand at Minton’s Playhouse, where he would end up most nights after to getting off work with Benny Goodman’s orchestra. Christian would play as much as he could, other guitarists deferring to him; it was common knowledge that no one could outplay Charlie Christian. So there he sat, with an expensive amp that Teddy Hill purchased so Christian wouldn’t have to lug his own amp back and forth, and play for hours.

Of Charlie Christian’s work at Minton’s only a handful of samples survive: “Swing to Bop,” “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” “Up on Teddy’s Hill,” “Stardust,” “Kerouac,” “Guy’s Got to Go,” and “Lips Flips.” They are stellar documents, lively, graceful, raw, bristling with the energy of the uncharted. They exist because of Jerry Newman, a trombone-playing Columbia student, who hauled a Wilcox-Gay Recordio disc-cutter over to Minton’s to record the jam sessions. (Jerry Newman and Jack Kerouac were pals according to Allen Ginsberg. Kerouac accompanied Newman to Minton’s when Kerouac was still a football-jock Columbia student. Charlie Christian named one of his tunes “Kerouac.”)

Charlie Christian :: Blues In B

In Benny Goodman’s band Christian’s solos were typically confined to a few bars, but at Minton’s he could stretch out, playing chorus after chorus. Minton’s was an oasis, where the band was top notch and inventive, the jam was open, and soloists free to experiment. The house band included Thelonious Monk on piano, Joe Guy on trumpet, Nick Fenton on bass, and Kenny Clarke (aka “Klook”) on drums. (Monk doesn’t play on the Christian recordings.) I imagine the music Charlie Christian made at Minton’s (and at Monroe’s, another after hours club in Harlem where the jam sessions were recorded) is the pinnacle of his contribution to the history of music, the place where he helped invent a new musical paradigm and transformed his instrument in the process, a double feat only a few of the true greats accomplished, placing him in the company of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor.

Where did he come from?

There was something startling about Charlie Christian’s progression as a musician, even to Teddy Hill who heard Christian play more than anybody who ever lived:

Where did he come from?…Take Dizzy. When he joined my band after Roy (Eldridge) left, [Dizzy] played just about like Roy. Then he was influenced a lot by Bill Dillard, who played lead trumpet for me and who, incidentally, was one of the best I ever had. Then Dizzy began to work out those new things with Monk and Klook…the point is, we could see him grow. But what about Charlie? Where did he come from?

In an essay on Charlie Christian by Ralph Ellison (yes, that Ralph Ellison) we get some answers. Ellison’s brother was in the same first grade class as Christian, and Ellison was familiar with the family and Christian’s early trajectory as a musician in Oklahoma City. In fact Ellison states, “I can recall no time when he was not admired for his skillful playing of stringed instruments.” Charlie Christian’s father and brothers were all musicians and they played frequently on the streets around Oklahoma City when Charlie was a boy. Ellison says that harmony was taught in school along with compulsory music appreciation classes. “In brief,” he writes, “both in his home and in the community Charles Christian was subjected to many diverse musical influences.”

Charlie Christian :: Up On Teddy’s Hill

In the mid-1930s, Mary Osborne saw Charlie Christian play during a stand with the Alphonso Trent band in Bismarck, North Dakota. She describes him as experimenting with ideas that would later turn up in Benny Goodman’s music on tunes like “Flying Home,” “Gone with the Wind,” and “Seven Come Eleven.” She is paraphrased by the writer Leonard Feather saying that “[Christian] didn’t play bop exactly but he did new things with augmented and diminished chords and introduced ideas that had a great deal in common with what was to become known as bebop.” In addition, according to the book Inside Jazz, in the 1930s Christian “would improvise on some of the popular songs that happened to have interesting chord patterns, such as ‘You Go to My Head’ and ‘My Old Flame’.”

Christian joined Benny Goodman’s band at the behest of John Hammond in 1939. The myth is that Goodman hired Christian for his sextet after hearing him solo on “Rose Room” for “nearly a half hour,” “over an hour and a half” or “48 minutes,” depending on who you believe.

In other words, Charlie Christian’s musical progression was not as abrupt as it appeared to Teddy Hill. When Christian arrived at Minton’s in 1939, he found players with similar ideas who could help to make his vision real: Bird, Monk, Dizzy, Klook and others, the fellow progenitors of bop; in reality, Charlie Christian had been incrementally working up to bop his whole life.

Waiting for Benny

If we put the Minton’s recordings aside, what’s left of Charlie Christian’s discography? Charlie Christian cut a few sides with Lionel Hampton’s orchestra, a few with Lester Young’s Kansas City Six, a few with the Ida Cox All-Star Band, and a few with the Edmond Hall Quartet (with Meade “Lux” Lewis on celeste and Christian on acoustic guitar). He played alongside many of the best musicians of his time: Count Basie, Cootie Williams, James P. Johnson, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Hot Lips Page, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Gene Krupa, Walter Page and many others.

Charlie Christian :: Waiting For Benny

The vast majority of Charlie Christian’s recorded output, however, both live and in studio, was with the Benny Goodman Sextet or Orchestra, which made Charlie Christian a star. There certainly is much to learn from listening to the Benny Goodman recordings, even though after hearing the Minton’s material, Christian’s playing may seem constrained, pinned down.

The most fascinating of the Benny Goodman recordings are two would-be throwaway tracks created while the studio engineer was setting levels on a Benny Goodman date in March of 1941. It is the final piece of the Charlie Christian puzzle. You can hear the engineer say, “Charlie, Charlie? Let’s play the blues in B” and the band launches into “Blues in B.” It’s less than two minutes before the voice can be heard again, wrapping up, but it’s an example of an extended solo outside of the jam context heard at Minton’s. Christian’s playing is composed, less loose, but the more focused for it.

The second track is titled “Waiting for Benny,” a quick fade-up and a few bars before Charlie Christian lets loose with a solo. “Waiting for Benny” is notable for its similarities to a Minton’s jam except with a well rehearsed regular band, vibrant and spry, highlighted by the sparring and interplay between Christian, Cootie Williams on trumpet (mute-less and white-hot, quite the upgrade from Joe Guy) and tenor saxophonist George Auld.

Charlie Christian died a year later, March 2, 1942, of complications brought on by tuberculosis. Benny Winestone, the Scottish tenor player who also played with Benny Goodman and knew Charlie said, “Junk and booze killed a lot of musicians. But that wasn’t the case with Charlie Christian. When he found out he was sick, he should have done something about it, but he kept on playing, playing all through the night, night after night. And that’s how he died. He played himself to death.” words / s mcdowell

Charlie Christian :: Swing To Bop

(This information was researched, cross-referenced and compiled on the back of many writers, from liner notes, essays and articles by: Leonard Feather, Gene Lees, Ralph Ellison, Peter Broadbent, Jim “The Hound” Marshall, Miles Okazaki, and Charlie Christian biographer, Craig McKinney.)

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