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After a rather long search, on and off for years, I have never been able to find a clip of Charlie Christian playing with Goodman, or any other group. Is it really the case that this guy was never filmed? Not even captured incidentally in filming of the Goodman unit?
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02-19-2016 12:21 PM
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I just googled it, someone stated there is no known video of Charlie Christian.
Ken
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The definition of a meteoric career...
- Joined the Goodman band in August 1939
- Committed to Seaview Sanitarium in June 1941 (with intermittent hopsitalizations before that).
- Died there in March 1942
The Goodman band also had a hiatus in 1940 because of Goodman's back injury.
It's sad nobody managed to get him on film, but not particularly shocking
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Just be grateful we got the Live at Minton's recordings - imagine not having those.
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I've been playing CC's "Solo Flight' at 200bpm, and now I hear where tal farlow came from.
Gunther Schuller in his humungous volume on the Swing Era called him the greatest soloist from that period.
His influence is still strong in Western Swing and rockabilly, yet we don't have any film on him and only one clip of Bird.
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you never know, something might show up in the future
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I keep hoping for video of Benny Goodman's band playing, and incidentally, there's Charlie Christian captured in it, but since CC wasn't the focus, maybe nobody keyed it to the video file and search engines can't find it; but it's there.
Gosh, if we did't have the Mintons recordings...
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I never even saw a still photo of him until I was probably in my 30s. I don't even know if there are a whole lot of those around, either.
but back then just to get a camera in the place to get a video would have been a major production in and of itself. The only way to "unobtrusively" record a video back then would probably have been to have one of those hand held 8mm cameras, like the one my grandpa took all the home movies with back in the 50s.
so it wouldn't surprise me at all that there just are no videos.
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But there is pretty good footage of the BG group from 1938, the Carnegie Hall concert. I just wish something had been shot in 1940-1941.
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you know, its funny, but as I sit here I honestly cannot picture what the man looked like
that's how few images of him I've actually seen in my life
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Here is a mash-up of video and photos from 1938. Goodman had a rhythm guitarist. I just wonder if any footage was shot when CC was in the group. BG played some big venues, and after 1938 Carnegie Hall Goodman and jazz became mainstream and got lots of attention. Surely CC is hiding in some newsreel vault somewhere!!!
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Originally Posted by lawson-stone
but that was a big-time production, too. That's kinda what I mean. It would take a major production like that to get a video of him.
I know you know what it was like to live before everyone had cell phones, but these days people take for granted that everybody is videoing everything. We forget that it used to take major production efforts to get moving pictures, so people only filmed (and it was actual film then, too
) major events, like the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert
but its still pretty amazing to think that somebody like Charlie Christian, with the influence he had on guitar playing, and there's not one single video clip of him playing
hell, if they ever do dig one up, I sure hope its a talkie!
you know, those handheld 8mm camera only took pictures, there wasn't any sound
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A real shame. We're lucky to have that one bit of footage of Django...
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True, all of it, but there is still a ton of newsreel footage. The BG unit was exactly the kind of band that would attract a "major production" since they were mainstreaming jazz. If any band would have the footage, it would be BG or Glen Miller, of course, but GM isn't our interest here. Originally Posted by Nate Miller
but that was a big-time production, too. That's kinda what I mean. It would take a major production like that to get a video of him.
I know you know what it was like to live before everyone had cell phones, but these days people take for granted that everybody is videoing everything. We forget that it used to take major production efforts to get moving pictures, so people only filmed (and it was actual film then, too) major events, like the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert
but its still pretty amazing to think that somebody like Charlie Christian, with the influence he had on guitar playing, and there's not one single video clip of him playing
hell, if they ever do dig one up, I sure hope its a talkie!
you know, those handheld 8mm camera only took pictures, there wasn't any sound
I'm just grasping at straws here, Nate. There is way more newsreel stuff and local footage than we ever imagine. The trick is discovery and access.
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Am I remembering right that you do some archaeology, Lawson?
As I'm sure you know more than any of us, the key isn't "did it exist?" but "did it survive and can it be found?"
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A few pictures of Charlie playing guitar:
Attachment 28443Attachment 28444Attachment 28445
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There's also whether the old reels even had sound. What if we finally found a clip, but instead of hearing the band, there's one of those "narrators" they used to always use talking over everything..."and here's the Goodman Band's new member Charlie Christian...See you later, Charlie! You'll be heading to Norway next week!"
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thanks, Mark! the third picture there on the right side is the only one of those I remember ever seeing.
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I think part of the problem is that CC really only had a couple of features with the full band. The vast majority of his recorded output was with the sextet or in jam sessions, where video would be very unlikely. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Well you guys have succeeded in totally discouraging me from continuing this search. Maybe someone else will keep trying, but I'm done with it.
Reality Bites.
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I think it's pretty conclusive that there's no known footage of Charlie C. I'll need to look this up, but IIRC there's a little bit in Peter Broadbent's book that mentions about something that was scheduled to be filmed that fell through.
As for the other legends mentioned above, there's actually 2 known clips of Parker, and at least 4 of Django.
Edit: On the subject of long lost treasures, ever hear of the Savory collection ?Last edited by pubylakeg; 02-19-2016 at 07:12 PM.
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Is there? Are they on the web? Originally Posted by pubylakeg
EDIT: ha, what do you know never google searched it. *embarassed*Last edited by christianm77; 02-19-2016 at 07:19 PM.
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Some of them are,
The most famous 1939 clip,
There's this from 1945?
The "La Route Du Bonheur" clip (at 2m 10s)
There's also a clip of Django onstage(white jacket, tapping his feet alternatively left foot, right foot etc, very brightly lit)
and I've read about film showing Django playing his Epiphone electric, which I don't know if it has sound. (don't think I've ever seem it though). So that's a possible 5 clips. I believe they were all assembled as extras on a DVD release, but I don't know the title/cat no.
The 2 Parker clips are the Hot House Downbeat clip, and the Gjon Mili Parker/Coleman Hawkins, Celerity clip. Actually, the soundtrack for that was long thought to be lost, until some clever soul realised it syncs with Parker's Verve recording. Makes sense, by the presence of Buddy Rich, and the audio quality actually sounds like film soundtrack.Last edited by pubylakeg; 02-19-2016 at 10:32 PM.
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I'm sorry, buddy, I was just riffing away. You know, just goofin on a Friday afternoon. I wasn't trying to run down the idea Originally Posted by lawson-stone
I'm wondering how you even go about a search like this? Me, I UTFG and then throw in the towel, but you go and do field work there as an archeologist...
how do you even start a search like this? If you feel like talking about it, I'm genuinely curious.
...and I feel really guilty about screwing up your thread
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What a shame there is no footage of Charlie Christian!!
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