Tonight I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas. Not for the first time: it's been around since 1965, and so have I. Well, a bit before that, actually: I do remember watching it every year in the 1960s.
Well, by what I've been listening to lately, along with what I expect to open on The Day, it promises to be A Charlie Christian Christmas for me. And it can be a Charlie Christian Christmas for you, too -- but why should you care?
Christian was one of the very first stars of the electric guitar (he joined the Benny Goodman Sextet in 1939, and, in jamming at Minton's and Monroe's in Harlem, served as a link from swing to bop. That last link, by the way, would also introduce you to some Dizzy Gillespie, a giant of bebop jazz. An outstanding pair would be The Benny Goodman Sextet featuring Charlie Christian and The Original Guitar Hero. Both are also available on iTunes, and individual tunes are as well.
Time for a plug for capitalism, too: as a guitarist, I've known the name "Charlie Christian" since the mid-70s, but I never saw a Benny Goodman Sextet album in a record store, ever, nor did I ever hear a Sextet tune on the radio, even though as a teen I lived in southern Florida, a place full of old folks and college students, a natural market, you'd think, for jazz. Let's be serious, though: jazz on the radio, in the US, is dominated by "cool" jazz, the West Coast school, bop and post-bop, and occasional Dixieland. That curious intersection of the 1930s and early 1940s, in which popular music and jazz commingled, seems to fall through the cracks. So I never heard a Charlie Christian guitar solo until I bought two Benny Goodman Sextet tunes on iTunes.
And due to capitalism, such a thing as the internet exists, and internet merchants such as amazon.com, who will sell you not only CDs on which Charlie Christian played, but books about his playing, such as this one, and this one, and this one.
But you can begin your discovery of Charlie Christian without spending a single dime, by going to Charlie Christian: Legend of the Jazz Guitar, and to Solo Flight: The Charlie Christian Web Site.
And the Solo Flight site is hosted right here in El Paso, and maintained by El Pasoan Leo Valdes. How cool is that?
Have a very merry Charlie Christian Christmas, everyone!
Posted by Craig Ceely at December 17, 2006 09:36 PM