SWING TO BOP (1941) by Charlie Christian

Charlie Christian is generally recognised as the person who popularised the electric guitar (although not the first) and who changed everyones thinking about how jazz could be played on it.

As well as playing guitar for Benny Goodman, Charlie participated in after hours jam sessions with other musicians in places such as Mintons and Monroes in New York City. On 12 May 1941 Charlie played Swing to Bop at Mintons, with Joe Guy on trumpet, Kenny Kersey on piano, Nick Fenton on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums. This live track excerpt is characterised by longer solos than Charlie would typically play with Goodman, and is a good indication of his incredible improvisational abilities. His influence on guitarists then and since has been massive.

Famed jazz guitarist Barney Kessel spent three days with Charlie watching him play. "He played probably 95% downstrokes and held a very stiff big triangular pick very tightly between his thumb and first finger. He rested his second, third and fourth fingers very firmly on the pickguard...". Source: Guitar Player March 1982.

For heaps of info on Charlie, see the site Solo Flight, which includes numerous transcriptions, including this one.

http://home.roadrunner.com/~valdes/

Sadly, there is no film available of Charlie Christian playing live, so I have included a slide show for this track.

Comments welcome.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• charlie
• christian
• jazz
• guitar
• benny
• goodman
• michaelbackhouse

[ethan4sk8]

can anyone tell me what key this piece is in?

[wilsonmcphert]

@ethan4sk8

It's in Bbm. See the link under the video for the CC site which has the transcription for this and other CC solos.

[brendananimation]

SAY WHAAAAAAAAAAT! daaaaaamn what the fuck has happened to music??? music is so dead now, can anyone do something like this anymore???

the more tools we have the less creative we get

[fmilktoast]

holy crap. genius!!!!!

[oliverf1]

@b0gzie I had a look too - the tab's not right. The notes are right but not the fingering. Sort of looks like a computer generated the tab from the notes.

[b0gzie]

@wilsonmcphert the transcription looks good, but what the hell is up with those fingerings? no way those can all be right. so awkward.

[PommeDeJazz]

@brendananimation Why do ignorant comments like this get so many thumbs up?

[J5MARLON]

Hearing all the first user of the electric guitar and his name popped up.

[ledzeppelinrulesya]

@brendananimation i dunno about that man. There's some pretty creative stuff going on. I guess you just don't know about it. for instance what colin stetson is doing with the saxophone, or kurt rosenwinkel with the guitar, or lionel loueke with the guitar (bill frisell too). Or what James blake does with synthesizers and vocoders. Man you're out of touch! That's not to say Charlie Christian isn't the man!

[frankiedetergent]

i actually hear influences from django reinhardt

[conoclast2]

And not a bent note in sight! It's like he's getting all that music out of half-a-guitar!

[j6449663]

EEEEEEOOOOOWWWWW !!!

[johnartwork]

Charlie Christian was born to play the guitar....Enough said!

[neilraoufsw]

gogo charles!

godfather of electric guitar playing (not just jazz...).