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Working Americans Vol. 12: Our History Through Music

1942 Profile: Charlie Christian, Perfected the Single—String Technique on

As a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz, Charlie Christian perfected the single-string technique combined with amplification, and helped bring the guitar out of the rhythm section and into the forefront of the band as a solo instrument—all before he was 25 years old.

Life at Home

  • The man who transformed the role of the guitar, Charlie Christian, grew up surrounded by music and musical instruments; as a pre-teen he danced and played in a quartet with his father and brothers.

    Charlie Christian’s technique with the guitar brought it out of the rhythm section and into the spotlight.

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  • Born on July 29, 1916, in Bonham, Texas, Charles Henry Christian was the son of Clarence James and Willie Mae Booker Christian.

  • Charlie’s father played a wide variety of instruments and enjoyed a diverse musical palette; his mother was a musician and singer who played background music at the local silent movie houses.

  • They taught their three sons to play a variety of instruments and popular songs of the day.

  • When Charlie was a baby, his father would place small stringed instruments next to the child and let him explore the sonority.

  • In the fall of 1918, when Charlie was two, his father was struck blind from fever and moved the family to Oklahoma City to find work.

  • As the child grew, so would the size of the instruments; he sampled the trumpet and the tenor saxophone, and played stringed instruments he made from a cigar box.

  • Charlie attended Douglass Elementary School at Oklahoma City, where the music instructor, Miss Zelia Breaux, taught the children music appreciation, including the classics, and offered personal instruction.

  • By the time Charlie was a teenager, he was already proficient on the guitar, and used those skills as a street performer, or busker, playing music with his brothers for cash or clothing in the better neighborhoods of Oklahoma City.

  • In 1936, Christian played shows in Dallas during the Texas Centennial and purchased his first electric guitar, a Gibson, in 1937 when he was 20.

  • Beginning in the late 1800s, Orville Gibson built mandolins and guitars with a carved top design before he incorporated Gibson Mandolin and Guitar Co., Ltd in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1902.

  • After years of success as a mandolin and “F Hole” archtop guitar manufacturer, in 1937 Gibson Guitars introduced their first electric guitar, the ES-150.

  • Charlie’s skills would transform how the guitar was viewed at the same time Louis Armstrong was demonstrating to young blacks that they could achieve financial, if not racial, equality through jazz.

    Charlie’s learned to love baseball from his father.

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  • Duke Ellington was making his mark on a national radio broadcast originating from New York City; jazz was beginning to break down some racial barriers.

  • Charlie also learned from his father the passion of baseball life, when the Negro Leagues offered a chance at financial freedom and racial pride.

  • But it was local trumpeter James Simpson and guitarist Ralph “Bigfoot Chuck” Hamilton who boosted Charlie’s career when they secretly taught him three popular songs: “Rose Room,” “Tea For Two,” and “Sweet Georgia Brown.”

  • When he was ready, Charlie wrangled an invitation to one of the many after-hours jam sessions along “Deep Deuce,” Northeast Second Street in Oklahoma City, where his older brother Edward was already a regular.

  • “Let Charles play one,” they told Edward.

  • Edward was reluctant, but when Charlie played all three new songs on the guitar that resulted in two encores, Deep Deuce was in an uproar.

  • Charlie then coolly dismissed himself from the jam session; his mother knew about his success before he got home.

  • From then on the young guitarist immersed himself in jazz, marijuana, and wearing fine clothes, like his hero Louis Armstrong.

Life at Work

  • By the time he turned 21, Charlie Christian and his guitar established a regional following in Oklahoma City.

  • Heralded for his unique single-note soloing style, he jammed with many of the big-name performers traveling through Oklahoma City, including Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum, and toured with Alphonso Trent and his orchestra.

  • It was Mary Lou Williams, pianist for Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy, who told New York record producer John Hammond about Charlie.

  • She pronounced him the “greatest electric-guitar player” she’d ever heard and was instrumental in persuading Hammond to give Charlie an audition.

  • Hammond was so blown away by what he heard, he orchestrated a surprise audition of Charlie with bandleader Benny Goodman, one of the biggest names in the business.

  • Goodman was one of the few white bandleaders willing to hire black musicians for his live band presentations.

  • Goodman had already made a musical statement when he hired Teddy Wilson on piano in 1935, and Lionel Hampton on vibraphone in 1936.

  • At the time as the audition, Goodman was trying to buy out Floyd Smith’s contract from Andy Kirk, but hired Charlie instead.

  • Initially, the meeting between the young, shy Charlie and the famous bandleader did not go well, so Hammond arranged for Charlie to sit in with the Goodman band that night without consulting Goodman.

  • Displeased at the surprise, Goodman called for “Rose Room,” a tune he assumed that Christian would be unfamiliar with.

  • Charlie had been reared on the tune, and when he came in with his solo, it was unlike anything Goodman had heard before.

    Benny Goodman was one of the few white bandleaders willing to hire black musicians.

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  • That version of “Rose Room” that night lasted 40 minutes—including some 20 distinctive solos from Charlie.

  • As a member of the Goodman sextet, Charlie went from making $2.50 a night to making $150 a week, and joined talents as renowned as Lionel Hampton, Fletcher Henderson, Artie Bernstein, and Nick Fatool.

  • In December 1939, Downbeat Magazine headlined the story “Guitar Men, Wake Up and Pluck! Wired for Sound, Let Them Hear You Play.”

  • Charlie was determined that the guitar would be a frontline band instrument like a saxophone or trumpet; in February 1940, Charlie Christian dominated the jazz and swing guitar polls and was elected to the Metronome All-Stars.

  • By the spring of 1940, Goodman had reorganized his band to bring together Charlie Christian, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Cootie Williams, Georgie Auld, and later, drummer Dave Tough.

  • This all-star band reigned over the jazz polls in 1941, and brought another election for Christian to the Metronome All-Stars.

  • Charlie’s distinctive solos—which helped move the electric guitar into the forefront—were heavily influenced by horn players such as Lester Young and Herschel Evans, whose sounds had been influencing the frontline of jazz.

  • In addition, after his electric guitar was featured on recordings from 1939 to 1941, country and western music moved quickly to elevate the role of the guitar.

    The guitar was becoming a popular addition to many musical groups.

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  • Charlie wanted his guitar to sound like a tenor saxophone and helped to usher in a style later known as “bop” or “bebop.”

  • His use of tension and release, a technique present on “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” and his use of eighth-note passages, triplets and arpeggio all made a contribution to the sounds of early 1942.

  • Many of these sounds were shared, cultivated and matured as a regular in the early-morning jam sessions at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Kenny Clarke.

  • Unfortunately, Charlie’s brilliant career was cut short by tuberculosis.

  • Following several short hospital stays, Charlie was admitted to Seaview, a sanitarium on Staten Island in New York City.

  • He was reported to be making progress, and Downbeat Magazine reported in February 1942 that he and Cootie Williams were starting a band.

  • Charlie died March 2, 1942, at 25 years old.

  • “Solo Flight,” the Goodman hit featuring Charlie Christian, made the top of Billboard’s Harlem Hit Parade in 1943.

Life in the Community: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

  • Oklahoma was born amidst the Native American relocation to the Oklahoma Territory in the 1820s, when the United States Government forced the Five Civilized Tribes to endure a difficult resettlement into the lands of Oklahoma.

    Oklahoma City skyline.

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  • Much of the western lands of Oklahoma, were part of the “Unassigned Lands,” including what is now Oklahoma City.

  • These areas were settled by a variety of white pioneers in the late 1800s.

  • Often settling on the land without permission, these pioneers were referred to as “Boomers,” and eventually created enough pressure that the U.S. Government opted to hold a series of land runs for settlers to claim the land.

  • On April 22, 1889, an estimated 50,000 settlers gathered at the boundaries; some, called “Sooners,” snuck across early to claim some of the prime spots of land.

  • Oklahoma City was immediately popular to the settlers as an estimated 10,000 people claimed land there.

  • By 1900, the population in the Oklahoma City area had more than doubled, and out of those early tent cities, a metropolis was being born.

  • Oklahoma became the forty-sixth state of the Union on November 16, 1907.

    “Boomers” who settled in Oklahoma without permission were often ejected by soldiers.

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  • As a result of oil speculation, Oklahoma grew exponentially in its early years, and by 1910 the capital of Oklahoma was moved to Oklahoma City as its population surpassed 60,000.

  • Oklahoma City’s various oil fields not only brought people to the city, but they also brought fresh ideas, giving rise to a vibrant music culture.

  • Oklahoma City became a meeting place of different people for the blending of the songs and dance music of the American Indians, Anglo-Celtic ballads from the upland South, country blues from the Mississippi Delta, black and white spirituals from the lowland South, European immigrant music from Italy, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, polka music from the upper Midwest, and Mexican mariachi from the Rio Grande Valley.

  • This cultural confluence of different genres of American music encouraged cross-cultural innovation and became the perfect breeding ground for the formulation of jazz styles.

  • Deep Deuce, or Northeast Second Street, was the core for Oklahoma City jazz, harboring institutions such as the Aldridge Theater, Ruby’s Grill, Richardson’s Shoe Shine Parlor, and Rushing’s Café—all of which catered to jazz musicians and enthusiasts.

  • Uptown ballrooms, such as the Ritz, were also important outlets.

  • In addition, in the 1920s and 1930s, numerous bands including the Jolly Harmony Boys, Pails of Rhythm, and Ideal Jazz Orchestra worked out of Oklahoma City.

  • This musical gumbo city produced many notable jazz artists, including Jimmy Rushing, Henry Bridges, Charlie Christian, and Don Cherry.

  • Appropriately, jazz has been called “America’s classical music,” and was nurtured in many sections of the United States.

  • Originally inspired by ragtime and folk songs, early jazz artists drew their musical inspiration from country dances, field hollers, work songs, and the blues.

  • Oklahoma musicians were instrumental in the creation of the so-called “Kansas City” style of jazz, a bluesy dance music contrasting with the Dixieland ragtime of New Orleans, or the sounds dominating Chicago or New York.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
"1942 Profile: Charlie Christian, Perfected The Single—String Technique On." Working Americans Vol. 12: Our History Through Music, edited by Scott Derks, Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=WA12_0062.
APA 7th
1942 Profile: Charlie Christian, Perfected the Single—String Technique on. Working Americans Vol. 12: Our History Through Music, In S. Derks (Ed.), Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=WA12_0062.
CMOS 17th
"1942 Profile: Charlie Christian, Perfected The Single—String Technique On." Working Americans Vol. 12: Our History Through Music, Edited by Scott Derks. Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=WA12_0062.