Charles Henry Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.
26 Facts About Charlie Christian
2.
Charlie Christian was among the first electric guitarists and was a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz.
3.
Charlie Christian's single-string technique, combined with amplification, helped bring the guitar out of the rhythm section and into the forefront as a solo instrument.
4.
Charlie Christian's family moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, when he was a small child.
5.
Charlie Christian had two brothers: Edward, born in 1906, and Clarence, born in 1911.
6.
Edward, Clarence, and Charlie were all taught music by their father, Clarence Henry Christian.
7.
Charlie Christian attended Douglass School in Oklahoma City, where he was further encouraged in music by an instructor, Zelia N Breaux.
8.
In 1939, Charlie Christian auditioned for John Hammond, who recommended him to bandleader Benny Goodman, who was only the fourth white bandleader to feature Black musicians in his live band.
9.
The bandleader called "Rose Room", a tune he assumed Charlie Christian did not know.
10.
However, Charlie Christian knew the tune and took an unprecedented twenty choruses of improvisation; Goodman hired him as a member of the band as a result.
11.
Charlie Christian was an important contributor to the music that became known as bop, or bebop.
12.
Examples of Charlie Christian's bebop playing can be heard in a series of recordings made at Minton's Playhouse by Jerry Newman, a student at Columbia University, on a portable disk recorder in 1941, in which Charlie Christian was accompanied by Joe Guy on trumpet, Kenny Kersey on piano and Kenny Clarke on drums.
13.
Clarke further commented that Charlie Christian first showed him the chords to "Epistrophy" on a ukulele.
14.
Charlie Christian returned home to Oklahoma City in late July 1940 and returned to New York City in September 1940.
15.
Charlie Christian was reported to be making progress, and DownBeat magazine reported in February 1942 that he and Cootie Williams were starting a band.
16.
Charlie Christian died of tuberculosis on March 2,1942, at the age of 25.
17.
Charlie Christian was buried in an unmarked grave in Bonham, Texas.
18.
The location of the historical marker and headstone was disputed, and in March 2013, Fannin County, Texas, recognized that the marker was in the wrong spot and that Charlie Christian is buried under the concrete slab.
19.
Charlie Christian's solos are frequently described as "horn-like", and in that sense he was more influenced by horn players such as Lester Young and Herschel Evans than by early arch-top guitarists like Eddie Lang and the jazz- and bluesman Lonnie Johnson, although they both had contributed to the expansion of the guitar's role from the rhythm section to a solo instrument.
20.
Charlie Christian stated he wanted his guitar to sound like a tenor saxophone.
21.
The French gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt had little influence on him, but Charlie Christian was obviously familiar with some of his recordings.
22.
Charlie Christian's exposure was so great in the brief period he played with Goodman that he influenced not only guitarists but other musicians as well.
23.
Charlie Christian reigned supreme in the jazz guitar polls up to two years after his death.
24.
In 1966,24 years after his death, Charlie Christian was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.
25.
In 1990, Charlie Christian was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influence.
26.
In 2006, Oklahoma City, where Charlie Christian was raised, renamed a street in its Bricktown entertainment district after the guitarist.