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Charlie is credited with being THE guitar influence on all the US jazz guitarist that followed in his wake but strangely, because of the arrival of bebop, Charlie's actual style is not obvious, in a big way, in the playing of most of the important players who came after him. In many ways, Charlie Parker became the main influence for Barney Kessel, Joe Pass, Tal Farlow, Jimmy Raney etc. For those players who carried the flag, for the Charlie of the Minton sessions, we have to look to Jimmy Rivers ( who is mainly thought of as a Western Swing player) and Mary Osborne ( who also stayed true to Charlie's spirit without wanting to update it with bebop lines)
BTW, are there any contemporary players who have produced albums that have tried to capture - and stay true to - Charlie's dynamic Minton's playing, spirit and sound?
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06-02-2018 03:04 PM
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Possibly Chris Flory? Plays in a swing style I think. I saw him once with Benny Goodman.
Another who played with Benny is Cal Collins.
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All I know is when I listen to the various recordings that I have of Charlie Christian, a lot of what he's playing still sounds fresh, cool, and exciting to me - which is amazing when you consider how old the recordings are!
I remember a conversation that I had with Barney Kessel back in the late 70's. He told me that he had figured out and memorized a number of Charlie Christian solos note for note early on in his career and had actually played them at a jam session with Charlie Christian when it was his turn to solo. Barney said Charlie had a surprised and puzzled look on his face afterwards - like he didn't know how to react to hearing his own solos played back at him!
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According to contemporary accounts, Charlie was one of the founders of bebop. He reportedly was one of the few miusicians who could run changes with Monk. The Minton sessions seem to bear that out. He played mostly swing with Goodman, because that's what he was paid to play, but his after hours playing was pretty advanced for the time.
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Originally Posted by sgosnell
Kessel said that Charlie was playing changes he heard in his head before the people he was playing with (the Goodman bands) were playing them. It's a shame that Charlie died so young---who knows how he might have developed and played with bebop bands???
He was a big influence on Kessel, of course, and also Herb Ellis. They both recorded tributes to him.
I wish Jonathan Stout would weigh in here because he has important things to say about the difference between swing playing and straight-ahead playing (-which is more what Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel developed).
Here are two tracks from Herb's album, "Thank You, Charlie Christian." One is fast ("Cook One") and the other more swing-ish, yet it is more "straight ahead" than the kind of swing Charlie played with Goodman. But Charlie's influence is large in both pieces. (And too, one can hear how a person can bear another player's influence without sounding just like him. Heck, Herb's sound isn't much like Charlie's at all. Kessell seemed to play---physically---more like Charlie. We'll hear that in his "Salute to Charlie Christian."
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Supposedly at Minton's it was pretty much a cluster jam on the bandstand with everyone trying to get a solo and Christian didn't get the chance to solo as much as you'd think so he mostly comped. The story is that on those occasions when he did get a chance to stretch out the audience would rise and stand in a circle in front of the stand in reverent awe. Those sides are amazing. All he really needed was Kenny Clarke, The rest of the cats are imo pretty much for the most part somewhat incidental and along for the ride. Nobody would listen to that stuff that much if it wasn't for CC. I wouldn't anyway. I think of him like the early Italian Renaissance painter Masaccio (born 1401) who died at 26 who only left behind a few (only 7 can be definitely attributed to him) extremely important paintings like The Tribute Money but kicked off the Renaissance. He was one of the most influential artists in history even if not exactly a household name like Van Gogh or Michelangelo.
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I'll be playing CC's Solo Flight with a big band on or near CC's birthday again this year, thanks to Rob McKillop's generous offering of the big band parts. Last year I made a moving speech about the greatness of CC before I played it.
I could tell it was moving cause I heard a baby cry right in the middle of it!
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I don't hear the same rhythmic feel nor the same clean construction of lines. I can't recall hearing anybody who sounded all that much like CC. I can't recall anybody using diminished chords in the same way.
That said, you can hear the influence. Playing lead lines on guitar with a horn like tone -- all of us can trace that to CC, not that he was the very first, but he was the first to be widely known and copied. BK used the CC pickup his whole career afaik, because to him, that was the way a jazz guitar should sound.
The examples posted have more notes that CC typically played ... faster tempos, alternate picking (CC used downstrokes, or so I've read -- and I think you can hear that) which adds something but perhaps sacrifices a certain clarity.
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Interestingly, and surprisingly, Charlie Bryd recorded a fine tribute to Charlie C on one of his early albums. The track is called "Homage to Charlie Christian" and Charlie Byrd shows that he can get around, very well, with a plectrum! I just listened to a clip of it on Amazon Uk. The track is included in album called "Charlie Byrd Four Classic Albums". In fact I have that cd and I might see if I can upload that particular track on to Youtube ( if can find the album!)
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always cool to see a jimmie rivers mention!..he was jim campilongo's mentor Originally Posted by diminished1944
western swing guys like jr barnard, jimmy wyble, leon rhodes and eldon shamblin really carried the cc torch
cheers
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Blues guys too. B B King mentioned the influence of Charlie Christian. T-Bone Walker was another big early influence---I'm not sure if T-Bone and Charlie ever played together... I think Charlie would have felt at home in some jump blues bands, for that matter. Originally Posted by neatomic
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
absolutely!! i've mentioned west coast jump blues guitarist- saunders king- before...he saw/knew/hung with cc...
the west coast jump scene was all about that...cc was one of the rare "okies" (tho officially texas born) to get the opportunity to go east and make it "big"...with goodman...(tho that has it's own stories)....many others headed west (steinbeck)...
west coast jump blues is now a "modern" genre of it's own...junior watson, and even our own like tim lerch & tommy harkenrider...luthier-grez & nocturnes tavo vega
and i've posted this many times before..but really!!...barney kessels (oklahoma born) wisdom on cc sound..always view worthy
cheers
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anyone have a transcription of that Salute to Charlie...found it ..WOLF MARSHALL has it in his book.. ..just ordered it
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BB showing some CC influence.
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[QUOTE=I'm not sure if T-Bone and Charlie ever played together... [/QUOTE]
They must have done ! unless i'm getting mixed up, I swear I read they were friends who used to busk together on street corners. one would dance and the other play.
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Never heard this one before thanks! Wow there is so much rock and roll in his jazz, CC is God! Haha, seriously thats a spirit I want to carry on, it's like a breath of fresh air, never mind it's from 80 years ago! Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
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Well, I feel that a lot of country style players have kept the spirit of Charlie alive more than jazz players. Here is Nashville super session guitarist Brent Mason with a riffy type number which recalls some of Charlie/Benny Goodman's tunes,
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For me, the thing about Christian isn't that he played electric guitar, it's that he was playing like that before the war, only 24 years old, and nobody else was, at least that I've ever heard. I don't know how it's possible to listen to him and not be excited. IMO this is the essence of swing - not just by CC, but by the entire group:
Guitar solo starts ~4:30 if you want to skip to it, but I don't recommend it. The entire song is perfect.
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I agree. I have not been too obsessive about listening to Charlie Christian, but I am constantly impressed by his playing when I listen. What stands out for me is his very modern way of playing. There weren't a lot of cats playing melodies like that at that time on any instrument (although of course as we know bebop had to come from somewhere).
He could have fit in during the bebop area, the 60's, even later. Seems like every player since then has a bit of CC in his or her musical DNA.
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Originally Posted by diminished1944
The important players after all had there very own distinctive style/voice, perhaps there was no need to sound like CC. Possibly because the guitar is harmonic & Melodic this dilutes it, because CC chordal playing was not nearly as remarkable/good as his solo lines. Barney & Wes play far more sophicated harmonic/chordal stuff than CC. Whilst on that Raney did not play so much chordally
I think you can hear more of CC in Benson's playing than most although obscured by Funkiness, that he got from Grant green,
Also the actual harmonic language had changed a bit since CC passed he was at the start of Bop, things started to really kick in after that, certainly in the 50's there were a lot more complicated tunes coming out,
not all standards but originals ( which some became standards )
But i think you are right about that .
Think of Django in France a lot of Euro/Gypsy guys played in the style of Django maybe, just guessing really ,the little i know of that scene.
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Allan Holdsworth
“I did try
to imitate Charlie Christian, and
then I realized I was just getting
good at imitating Charlie
Christian.”
may be as true for Wes GB Barney etc etc etc
you could get further away from CC than Holdsworth
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Monk and Christian were supposedly planning to put together a band at the time of Christian's death.
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Ahhhhhhhh! That's one of the worst "might have beens" that i've heard in a long time! Monk and CC together? That would have been so awesome! For me, that gets me even more than the supposed live tapes of Coltrane and Wes.
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Allegedly Monk played with Charlie Christian on some tracks of this live recording. Although I don’t think Monk had evolved his later style at this time. Originally Posted by Sam b
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