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Charlie Christian

As the man who popularized the guitar in a jazz setting, his legacy lives on.

Charlie Christian was born on July 29, 1916 in Bonham, Texas but was raised in Oklahoma City from the time he was two years old. Charlie's immediate family were all musically talented - his mother played the piano; his father sang and played the trumpet and guitar; his brother, Clarence, played the violin and the mandolin; and his oldest brother, Edward, played the string bass. His parents made a living writing accompaniments for silent movies. At the age of twelve, Charlie was playing on a guitar that he had made from a cigar box in a manual training class. Charlie was actually first trained on the trumpet which was a huge contribution to his fluid single-note guitar style. Then, his father and brothers formed a quartet and Charlie got a real guitar. They performed in Oklahoma City clubs and Charlie even met Lester Young (tenor saxophonist) during one of his performances. Charlie was fascinated by Lester's style which helped in shaping his own stylistic development.

At the age of twenty-one he was playing electric guitar and leading a jump band. At the age of 23 (1939), Charlie was discovered by a talent scout, John Hammond, who had stopped in Oklahoma city to attend Benny Goodman's first Columbia recording sessions. Pianist Mary Lou Williams had actually recommended Charlie to John Hammond. Goodman was not very excited, this was due to the fact that Charlie was an unknown musician playing an electric instrument. The amplified electric guitar was fairly new at the time (trombonist and arranger Eddie Durham began playing it as a solo instrument in Jimmie Lunceford's band in 1935). It was essentially an amplified "f-hole," and it helped in making the jazz guitar solo a practical reality for the first time.

Previously relegated to a chordal rhythm style by the limitations of the acoustic instrument, jazz guitarists could now revel in the volume, sustain, and tonal flexibility provided by amplification. Charlie quickly realized the potential of the electric guitar, and developed a style which made the most of the unique properties of the instrument. When Charlie arrived in Los Angeles, he was only allowed a brief audition and he was not even allowed the time to plug in his amp. Goodman was not impressed so Hammond decided to sneak Charlie onstage later that night during a concert at the Victor Hugo. This made Goodman angry and he responded by launching into "Rose Room," which he assumed Charlie would be unfamiliar with. Charlie performed an impressive extended solo on the piece. This impressed Goodman and Charlie was let into the band.

Charlie Christian: The Original Guitar Genius

by Chris May
March 21, 2007

Charlie ChristianThe Original Guitar GeniusProper Records2005 The New Orleans cornetist Buddy Bolden--active in the early 1900s--won his reputation as a founding father of jazz without leaving any recorded evidence of his talent. His epoch-shaping stature is based entirely on folklore, the testimony of a few contemporaries, and a handful of newspaper clippings. The Texas-born, Oklahoma-raised guitarist Charlie Christian (1916-42) shares something of Bolden's semi-mythic aura. Like Bolden, Christian ...

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From the Inside Out

Chasin' Charlie's Ghost: Modern Guitar

by Chris M. Slawecki
October 4, 2006

Charlie Christian may or may not have been the first musician to master the electric guitar, but one thing is certain: the first guitarist who plugged in, whoever it was, forever changed the course of modern music. Guitar styles through the decades since passed seem to have multiplied until they outnumber guitarists! But since there always seems to be room for more... Joyce Cooling Revolving Door NaradaJazz 2006 Gibson ...

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Album Review

Charlie Christian: The Genius of the Electric Guitar

Read "The Genius of the Electric Guitar" reviewed by Charlie B. Dahan

by Charlie B. Dahan
September 12, 2002

Never has a title of an album or anthology been more on the money than the new Charlie Christian boxset entitled “The Genius of Electric Guitar.” The more profound aspect of this collection is that when you are listening you are amazed that only two years existed between his discovery in Oklahoma by John Hammond and his death due to tuberculosis at the age of twenty-five. While Christian was not the first musician to play the electric ...

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Album Review

Charlie Christian: The Genius Of The Electric Guitar

Read "The Genius Of The Electric Guitar" reviewed by Jim Santella

by Jim Santella
September 1, 2002

The Benny Goodman Sextet opened doors. When guitarist Charlie Christian would take a solo, he’d express the ideas that made jazz what it is. He and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton had a lot of solo space in those sessions. Their improvisation set standards. Take “Boy Meets Goy (Grand Slam),” for example. It’s a boogie-woogie in the swing style of “Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B.” Under Goodman’s leadership, the piece swings hard. Clear rhythmic processes and crisp inflection come as no ...

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Album Review

Charlie Christian: When Lights Are Low

by Al Rearick
October 1, 2001

For everyone wondering if and when Sony will ever get around to upgrading the CDs of music by legendary guitar-player Charlie Christian, well...I guess we’ll have to keep waiting. In the meantime, though, the good folks at Catfish Records have beaten Sony to the punch with their great-sounding compilation of prime Christian, When Lights Are Low.

At first glance, it’s perplexing to figure out who this is marketed towards. Die-hards will want to wait for a more complete overview of ...

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Album Review

Charlie Christian: The Complete Charlie Christian

by Craig Jolley
August 1, 2001

Note: This review covers the four-disk sets The Complete Studio Recordings and The Complete Live Recordings.

Charlie Christian is often described as the first great electric guitar soloist, but he was more. Together with Lester Young, Nat Cole, Coleman Hawkins, and Roy Eldridge he paved the way for bebop by stretching swing era rhythmic and harmonic concepts. He conceived wonderfully imaginative solos with a single-note, saxophone-like attack,

often accenting in unexpected places and creating lines with unusual intervals. Christian had ...

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