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Charles Henry Christian (29 de julio de 1916-2 de marzo de 1942) fue un guitarrista estadounidense de swing y jazz .

Christian fue uno de los primeros intérpretes importantes de la guitarra eléctrica y una figura clave en el desarrollo del bebop y el cool jazz . Obtuvo exposición nacional como miembro del Sexteto y Orquesta de Benny Goodman desde agosto de 1939 hasta junio de 1941. Su técnica de una sola cuerda, combinada con la amplificación, ayudó a sacar la guitarra de la sección rítmica a la vanguardia como instrumento solista. Por esto, a menudo se le atribuye haber liderado el desarrollo del papel de la guitarra principal en conjuntos y bandas musicales. John Hammond [1] y George T. Simon [2] llamaron a Christian el mejor talento de improvisación de la era del swing.. En las notas del álbum Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian (Columbia, 1972), Gene Lees escribió que "Muchos críticos y músicos consideran que Christian fue uno de los padres fundadores del bebop, o si no eso, al menos un precursor de ella ". [3]

La influencia de Christian llegó más allá del jazz y el swing. En 1990, fue incluido en el Salón de la Fama del Rock and Roll en la categoría de Influencia Temprana.

En 2006, Oklahoma City renombró una calle en su distrito de entretenimiento de Bricktown "Charlie Christian Avenue" (Christian se crió en Oklahoma City y fue uno de los muchos músicos que tocaron en la sección " Deep Deuce " de la ciudad en NE Second Street).

Vida temprana [ editar ]

Christian nació en Bonham, Texas . Su familia se mudó a Oklahoma City, Oklahoma , cuando él era un niño pequeño. Sus padres eran músicos. Tenía dos hermanos, Edward, nacido en 1906, y Clarence, nacido en 1911. A los tres hijos les enseñó música su padre, Clarence Henry Christian. Clarence Henry quedó ciego por la fiebre y, para mantener a la familia, él y los niños trabajaron como músicos callejeros , en lo que los cristianos llamaban "bustos". Haría que lo llevaran a los mejores vecindarios, donde actuarían por dinero en efectivo o bienes. Cuando Charles tuvo la edad suficiente para acompañarlos, primero se entretuvo bailando. [4] Más tarde aprendió a tocar la guitarra, heredando los instrumentos de su padre a su muerte cuando Charles tenía 12 años. [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.[8]

National fame[edit]

Benny Goodman and Christian in a recording studio, April 1941

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]

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[edit]

Christian playing guitar in-studio, summer 1940
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] 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[edit]

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[edit]

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]

Probable 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[edit]

  • 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[edit]

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[edit]

  • 2005 Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian
  • 2007 Charlie Christian- The Life & Music of the Legendary Jazz Guitarist (Grossman Guitar Workshop)

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Hammond, John; Townsend, Irving (1977). John Hammond on Record: An Autobiography. New York: Ridge Press. ISBN 0-671-40003-7.
  2. ^ Simon, George T. (1971). The Big Bands. ISBN 0-02-872430-5.
  3. ^ a b c d Liner notes. Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian. Columbia G 30779.
  4. ^ Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's King of Swing. p. 7.
  5. ^ a b Lee, Amy (1940). "Charlie Christian Tried to Play Hot Tenor!" Metronome.
  6. ^ Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's King of Swing. pp. 12–15.
  7. ^ a b c Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's King of Swing. pp. 18–20, 137, 399.
  8. ^ Jasinski, Laurie E. "Charles Henry Christian Profile". Tshaonline.org. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
  9. ^ Feather, Leonard: (1960). The Encyclopedia of Jazz. Horizon Press.
  10. ^ Amy Lee, Amy (1940). "Charlie Christian Tried to Play Hot Tenor!" Metronome.
  11. ^ "Inductees". Oklahoma Jazz Hall Of Fame. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
  12. ^ Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's King of Swing. pp. 369, 373-374.
  13. ^ Lee, Amy (1940), "Charlie Christian Wanted to Play Hot Tenor!" Metronome.
  14. ^ a b Feather, Leonard. "Inside Jazz".
  15. ^ "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee". Rockhall.com. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
  16. ^ Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's King of Swing. pp. 327–328.
  17. ^ Popoff, Martin (2011). Black Sabbath FAQ. Backbeat Books.
  18. ^ Feather, Leonard (1960). The New Edition of the Encyclopedia of Jazz. Horizon Press: New York.
  19. ^ a b "Leo Valdes". Home.roadrunner.com. Archived from the original on 2012-03-15. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
  20. ^ a b Centlivre, Kevin (2009-04-16). ""Revisiting Charlie Christian"". Blogs.myspace.com. Archived from the original on 2010-08-08. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
  21. ^ a b Broadbent, Peter. Charlie Christian, Solo Flight: The Story of the Seminal Electric Guitarist.
  22. ^ Spring, Howard (1980). The Improvisational Style of Charlie Christian.
  23. ^ "Jazz". World Book Encyclopedia.
  24. ^ Albertson, Chris. Liner notes. Columbia G 30779.
  25. ^ Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's King of Swing. p. 344.
  26. ^ Goins, Wayne; McKinney, Craig. A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's King of Swing. p. 327.
  27. ^ "Burial Info for Charles Christian". TXFannin. Retrieved 2014-03-16.
  28. ^ Broadbent, Peter, Charlie Christian: Solo Flight, ISBN 1872639569, Ashley Mark, 2003, p.48
  29. ^ "Charlie's Gear". 22 January 2015.
  30. ^ "Rare Charlie Christian guitar to be exhibited during Charlie Christian International Music Festival". 2 June 2010.
  31. ^ "Finding Charlie Christian's Guitar: Lynn Wheelwright Interview - Jas Obrecht Music Archive". jasobrecht.com.

References[edit]

  • 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[edit]

  • "Charlie Christian". Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
  • Charlie Christian, Style Analysis and Solo Examples
  • Deep Deuce History and photos
  • Charlie Christian, a biography by C.J Shearn
  • Gates Hill Cemetery