Charlie Christian Biography
The role of Charlie Christian (1916-1942) role in the development of 20th century jazz is almost incalculable. Generally regarded as the first important electric guitarist, Christian played with an unprecedented fluidity and swing that helped to establish the electric guitar as a jazz instrument. As jazz’s first great guitar soloist, he established a musical vocabulary that was adopted and emulated by generations of subsequent players. Christian’s influence is particularly impressive, considering the short amount of time that he spent in the public eye and the relatively small number of recordings he made.
Christian was born in Texas and grew up in Oklahoma, where he and his fathers and brothers sometimes worked as street performers to help support their struggling family. He learned to play guitar as well as trumpet and piano, and began playing an amplified guitar in 1936. Word of Christian’s talent reached producer and talent scout John Hammond, who arranged for him to audition for Benny Goodman, the first popular white bandleader to feature African-American musicians. In 1939, Goodman hired Christian to play with his newly formed all-star sextet, and the guitarist quickly gained widespread acclaim. When Goodman reorganized his band in the spring of 1940 and let most of his musicians go, he retained Christian. But Christian’s bright musical future was cut short when he contracted tuberculosis in 1941; he died the following March at the age of 25.
The horn-like quality of many of Christian’s solos can be attributed to the fact that he was influenced more by horn players than by other guitarists. So it was fitting that Christian had a significant influence on bebop horn players like Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, as well as Thelonious Monk, whose piano playing often echoed Christian’s style. Although most of his professional recordings were made in a commercial swing vein, Christian also played a key role in the development of bebop, through his participation in after-hours jam sessions at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem with such musicians as Monk, Gillespie and Kenny Clarke. Some of those jams survive via informal live recordings that have surfaced over the years.
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