Charles Henry Christian (July 29, 1916 – March 2, 1942) was an American swing and jazz guitarist.
It can be said without exaggeration that virtually every jazz guitarist that emerged during 1940-65 sounded like a relative of Charlie Christian. The first important electric guitarist, Christian played his instrument with the fluidity, confidence, and swing of a saxophonist. Although technically a swing stylist, his musical vocabulary was studied and emulated by the bop players, and when one listens to players ranging from Tiny Grimes, Barney Kessel, and Herb Ellis, to Wes Montgomery and George Benson, the dominant influence of Christian is obvious.
Charlie Christian's time in the spotlight was terribly brief. Born in Bonham, Texas, to Clarence and Willie Christian, Charlie Christian moved with the family to Oklahoma City in 1918. He followed the musical tradition of his older brothers and father and learned to play the trumpet before he was ten. By age twelve he switched to the guitar, making his own crude instrument from cigar boxes in manual training class, as novelist and family friend Ralph Ellison recalled.
Christian attended Douglass High School in Oklahoma City and learned his music on Deep Deuce, or Northeast Second Street, an incubator for many of the nation's jazz greats. In the 1930s he played string bass with Alphonso Trent's band. Then in 1937 he discovered the instrument with which he would be forever associated—the electric guitar. Taught by Eddie Durham, of the Count Basie band, and Jim Daddy Walker, of the Jap Allen group, Christian took his lessons to a higher level, changing the electric guitar from a rhythm instrument to an important solo presence in the orchestra. His distinctive stylistic innovations had an undeniable influence on generations of jazz and popular music guitarists.
For all his talent and technique, Christian might have remained a regional sensation if not for jazz producer John Hammond. Hammond was impressed by Charlie's playing, and he arranged for him to audition for one most successful jazz musicians in the world: bandleader and clarinetist Benny Goodman.
On August 10, 1939, Goodman met Christian at a recording studio in Los Angeles. Goodman thought meeting Charlie was a waste of time, and the entire audition lasted only a few minutes. Charlie's association with the legendary Goodman might have ended there, but Hammond was a persistent man. He arranged for Charlie to sit in with Goodman's band that night, and Charlie's guitar playing held the audience spellbound for over 40 minutes. Goodman was impressed, and hired Christian to play with his newly formed sextet.
By February 1940 Christian dominated the jazz and swing guitar polls and was elected to the Metronome All Stars. In the spring of 1940 Goodman let most of his entourage go in reorganization. He retained Christian, and in the fall of that year Goodman led a sextet with Christian, Count Basie, Duke Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams, former Artie Shaw tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld and later drummer Dave Tough.
This all-star band dominated the jazz polls in 1941, including another election to the Metronome All Stars for Christian. Johnny Guarnieri, who replaced Henderson in the first sextet, filled the piano chair in Basie's absence. 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.
While touring the Midwest in the summer of 1941, he began showing severe signs of tuberculosis, a malady blamed on years spent in an Oklahoma City slum apartment house.
He entered the Seaview Sanatarium at Staten Island, New York, and he died there on March 2, 1942, at the age of twenty-five.
He was buried in an unmarked grave in Bonham, Texas. A Texas State Historical Commission Marker and headstone were placed in Gates Hill Cemetery in 1994. 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 Christian is buried under a concrete slab.
In 1966, 24 years after his death, Christian was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1989 the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame created its first seven inductions, which included Christian. He was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence in 1990.
All of the guitarist's recordings (including guest spots and radio broadcasts) are currently available on CD. (Edited mainly from AllMusic, okhistory.org &, Wikipedia)
Sadly, there is no film available of Charlie Christian playing live, so included is a slide show.