Charlie Christian

[buddy884]

hey,

i´m looking for some good books about charlie christian and his playing style. not that much for songbook or notes, more general information and analysis.
any suggestions?

kind regards

sebastian

[m78w]

Check these two out:

Amazon.com: The Guitar Chord Shapes of Charlie Christian (Book & CD): Joe Weidlich, Charlie Christian: Books

Amazon.com: The Best of Charlie Christian: A Step-by-Step Breakdown of the Styles and Techniques of the Father of Modern Jazz Guitar (Guitar Signature Licks): Wolf Marshall: Books

MW

[pierre richard]

There is a series of books called Jazz Masters (coltrane,miles,bird,diz,monk,charlie christian,django)...bout 1/2 inch thick...examples and lots of transcriptions...offhand do not know the publisher but i'll come back later with that information...

time on the instrument...pierre...

[reventlov]

You may be interested in this website - Charlie Christian - Legend of the Jazz Guitar - some folks just prefer books of course but that site is an absolute goldmine of info about Charlie Christian - bio, style analysis, lots of transcriptions of solos etc.

[hot ford coupe]

That's a pretty good site. I found it from a different source and it's about the most complete lot of info I've seen on Charlie in print.

[wordsmith]

Music is one of the oldest things in the world. There is always someone that will come along and revise - and you take something a hundred years old and you make it fresh. In explaining this to a lot of people that are not musically inclined, you can confuse them. So, music is educational and confusing. That's my philosophy. You get a head full of something - the first thing you want to know - there has got to be an explanation for this, but what? When someone starts explaining it to you, yee gods, ya don't have anything, cause you get caught off base. And when you get caught off base, you out! (Clarence Christian, 1978)

[Tom Z]

The site is set up strange. If you hit the link posted above, you should get a white webpage that has a link for "solos", which has 20-30 transcriptions (with Tab if you are into that).

If you look at the white page and find "links" it will take you to "solo flight-new address" which has about 20-30 different solos and tabs, but the same URL address. This page has 5 versions of Stompin at Savoy!

If you dig around a bit, you will see what I mean. I made a book out of all the solos in case the site ever goes down.

CC was the man! I knew a guy that used to jam with him at Mintons with Diz.

[JoshuaR]

Great web page, has almost everything about the man himself

[Banksia]

The book that Pierre referred to above is The Jazz Master Series Charlie Christian by Stan Ayeroff Consolidated Music Publishers 1979. There's also a Django book in that series.

[cliff lenz]

I'm looking for some feedback from anyone who has an opinion about the line of Jazz Kat amps especially in comparison with Polytone or Henrikksen amps. I'm considering buying a new amp. I play a Gibson L-5 and am partial to a clean, fat tone with a bit of reverb.

Cliff- Seattle, Washington USA

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Originally Posted by cliff lenz

I'm looking for some feedback from anyone who has an opinion about the line of Jazz Kat amps especially in comparison with Polytone or Henrikksen amps. I'm considering buying a new amp. I play a Gibson L-5 and am partial to a clean, fat tone with a bit of reverb.

Cliff- Seattle, Washington USA

Hey Cliff,

Bit of a thread hijack, there

But anyway, have you been to Sound Island? http://stores.soundislandmusic.com/StoreFront.bo

They seem to have all the big jazz amps except Polytone. (I wonder if there is a story there?) Hearing is believing, Line up a few amps and see how they sound with your axe.

And as for reverb, you can always use something like the Holy Grail pedal:
YouTube - Electro Harmonix Holy Grail Plus Reverb Pedal Demo

ps. If you like a fat "tubey" sound, check out the TomKat, which lets you choose between a solid state and a tube pre-amp. Of course, you could always just use a modeling amp, too...