ROSE ROOM (1939) by the Benny Goodman Sextet featuring Charlie Christian on guitar

Rose Room was one of the first studio tunes recorded 2 October 1939 by guitarist Charlie Christian after he joined the Benny Goodman Sextet. I love this and other Goodman small group tracks as they are a good introduction to jazz and swing. They are popular circa forties' era tunes, with members taking melodic solos that can be appreciated against the chord changes. These tracks initially helped me 'get' jazz, rather than being scared off by some of the less user friendly forms of it.

This song was also important in helping Charlie join Goodman's group. The story goes that Charlie sat in unannounced with Goodman's group at a live performance at the Victor Hugo restaurant in Los Angeles on 16 August 1939, at the instigation of producer John Hammond, who had been hearing about Charlie's electric guitar work in Oklahoma City. (Apparently Goodman had not shown much interest in Charlie when he had auditioned briefly on acoustic guitar at a recording session earlier that day). According to Wikipedia, 'displeased at the surprise, Goodman called "Rose Room", a tune he assumed that Christian would be unfamiliar with. Unknown to Goodman, Charles had been reared on the tune, and he came in with his solo — which was to be the first of about twenty, all of them different, all unlike anything Goodman had heard before. That version of "Rose Room" lasted forty minutes; by its end, Christian was in the band. In the course of a few days, Christian went from making $2.50 a night to making $150 a week'.

Also worth noting are Benny's lovely clarinet playing and tone, Lionel Hampton's vibes, and the sextet's playing generally. I never thought I would get into this sort of music (preferring rock and pop) but this stuff is worth exploring. If you like this tune, check out Charlie's other recorded tracks with Benny Goodman, as well as some of his more extended soloing live at Minton's and Monroe's. (Regarding the latter, see my Charlie Christian videos for Stompin' at the Savoy and Swing to Bop as examples).

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.

Sadly there is no film footage of this sextet, so I have put together a slide show using images of the actual members who played on the track. Note that at the beginning of the video, the last two Sextet names are smaller than the others. This was not intentional, but something that happened when converting to a Windows file.

For heaps of info on Charlie, see the site Solo Flight, which includes numerous transcriptions, including this one. http://home.roadrunner.com/~valdes/

Comments on the video are invited.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• benny
• goodman
• sextet
• charlie
• christian
• lionel
• hampton
• small
• groups
• swing

[ruffian1868]

What's with demoting the bassist and drummer in the credits at the beginning ?

[wilsonmcphert]

@ruffian1868 See discussion of this in background just under the yt screen. It was an unintended consequence of file conversion.

[MrMutron]

@wilsonmcphert Do you know Gibson Guitars has used THIS video (your video) on their recent article on Charlie Christian? Pretty cool man.

[wilsonmcphert]

@MrMutron

They used my video of 'Stompin at the Savo'y as well. Cool. And thank for the heads up.

[49kasey]

@lalbruiz Odd isn't it, how with all our fine technology, the music today sucks... so ironic.

[8cccpeevostokzempf]

Wearin' out the REPEAT button.

[DrFrankmeister1]

@wilsonmcphert... thanks so much for your commentary and copy of this tune. Of all the early jazz tunes out there, Ken Burns selected this tune for the background music for the credits section all 10 discs on Jazz, and over time it haunted me. I'm rewatching the Benny Goodman Story (with Fred Allen) and am loving the music all over again. Thanks for the treasure!

[Georgio64folk]

I love YOUTUBE

[kvnlmn]

@49kasey couldn't agree more

[555Filters]

Can you believe my Mother,

now 82yo, turned me on to Charlie.

[coonks1]

Benny is the genius.Please check out my video under "entertainer mike danton"

[TheHeater90]

@kmc56 Ellington also has a very fine version of this tune, "Rose Room", which his band recorded in 1932. And it was a hit!  I can't decide which version I prefer though. Both are very good, but this one with Charlie may be more historically noteworthy.

[taildragger53]

@kmc56 My father had friends who had jammed with Coltrane back in the late 50s. I have listened closely to practically every alto & tenor player for the past 50 yrs. If we take Blues out of jazz we are left with very little, IMHO..perhaps just Mexican & Haitian music leftover. Ironically, there are many on ytube who say there is NO connection with Blues & Jazz.

[kmc56]

Ellington's "In A Mellow Tone" is based on these changes.

[kmc56]

@callasexperience I call it the New Orleans idiom - it's like a language. Lester Young was fluent in this idiom, too.