STOMPIN' AT THE SAVOY (1941) - Charlie Christian live in small club
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ส.ค. 2024
- Here is another Charlie Christian track playing live at Mintons in New York City (the other I have uploaded is Swing to Bop from the same session). These are my two favourite CC tracks. However I also love his Goodman stuff, both studio and radio broadcasts as well (see my video of Rose Room).
Charlie not only popularised the electric guitar, but also influenced just about everyone who came after with his horn like solos and sense of swing. As well as playing guitar for Benny Goodman, Charlie did some moonlighting in after hours jam sessions with other musicians in places such as Mintons and Monroes in New York City. On 12 May 1941 Charlie Christian jammed on 'Stompin' at the Savoy' at Mintons, with Joe Guy on trumpet, Nick Fenton on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums. Despite the original acetates indicating Thelonious Monk played piano, some consider it was Kenny Kersey based, at least in part, on analysis of playing style.
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.
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.
As there is no film available of Charlie Christian playing live, I have included a slide show for this track.
Comments are invited.
I wish someone would make a Hollywood movie of his life. He had a short life, but influenced every guitar on the planet, forever.
Hear hear
You can watch The Benny Goodman Story made in the 50s.
Well, some who met him considered him pretty shy until he played. I do love that John Hammond & Benny realized he was consequential pretty quickly
I’ve been saying the same for Wes Montgomery.
he’s literally one of the most important electric guitar players ever but most people don’t even know who he is
Charlie Christian, the beginning of the electric guitar era.
the first guitar hero.
Jeremiah Lasola Yes,, Christian,, or,, "Mister Christian",, as I call's im!!! He was the true father of lead guitar, incorporating bebop, swing, jazz, and rock/n/roll technically!!! If you consider that rock n roll was the first child of bebop/swing!! What a talented man! R.I.P. MISTER CHRISTIAN!!!
Jeremiah Lasola shut up
I agree 100% and Hendrix is the logical conclusion!!!
Let's not forget Sister Rosetta Tharp!
@@titchner211c Hendrix was a great player but i think of him more of a dissolution than a conclusion. Too Dionysian his music was a reflection of the excesses of his own life.
Playing guitar like that in the 40's must have stunned everybody.
LC40 Blind Blake was from the 20s
Check him out
Um hm m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3603006936410143&id=100001026151518
My guitar playing still stuns everyone but that's because of how badly I suck.
@@Bejaardenbus hahaha
Charlie was the man. He still is. I've heard the studio B sessions a million times. Nobody swings like Chollie
It's still some of the most coherent and focused guitar improvising you'll ever hear. Charlie always swung and always made melodic and harmonic sense. I'll take that over the sweeping, tapping, and chromatic excesses of today. If you're going to play too many notes, you better also be playing intervals and arpeggios and developing musical ideas.
Wow
Analysis like this really helps non-musicians like me understand WHY I like this over the frenetic style of today...good work...
What stuns me about this man is prior to his playing none of the improvisations existed on a guitar...yet you hat Wes Montgomery...Benson...Kessel...and even Chuck Barry way before the guys were born.
Spot on!
The greatest to ever do it. Literally
How can soneone come up with so many different fantastic ideas without repeating anything. seems divinely inspired to me.
He knows a lot of scales but he's reached the level where you can freely jump between them without thinking about it and create all kinds of hybrid sounds, that plus endless rhythmic inventiveness and the guy could go on forever!
Have you listened to "Waiting for Benny ". A real treat.
I love the humor and mischievous invention in his playing-along with knowledge and melodic development, he is enjoying himself.
No showboating, total concentration on putting what's in his head onto the fretboard and making it sound easy. Love it.
listening to this MAN playing those licks means you don't need drugs to get high kids, jus take it in .....
Still sounds very modern.
no.
Sounds very be-bop at times
yes
He already was modern. Modern ended a half century ago.
I have listened to this 50 to 100 times over and I just become more amazed at this man's phrasing and selection of licks - it is endless. Is there away i can add a million thumbs up? If there was i would do it, and double it at that. Long live Charlie Christian, we may not have any video of him, but thank God for this and many more recordings.
I’d love to know how he worked out all these lines. As he was developing his skill did he sit with a piano player and jam, or listen to 78 rpm records, which is possible. To get that fluid so young is amazing, it’s no wonder he impressed big musical stars of the day. But what guitar players did he have to learn from? They were all chord guys and the charts were all rhythm guitar arrangements. Was he actually the first soloist?
@@chilitoday I know he played piano and i blieve a brass instrument for a while..his lines are jazz chord base...very sophisticated and he just whips through these changes effortlessly.
He just invents the licks as he plays and has that amazing groovy but not sticking to what's safe at all times, a bit like Monk
Wow, it's amazing that there was a guitarist playing like that so long ago. What a guitar sound. I'm totally flipping out on this.
I'm not sure whether to be inspired or sickened every time I hear him. LOL!
amsedelm
@@SimpleManGuitars1973 Inspired.
@@SimpleManGuitars1973 Sickened as to how he's been overlooked so long? That's me.
Charlie is the shit.
This guy just goes on mesmerizing me. Just cannot ever get tired of him.
Charlie was the cat that let elecric guitar out of the bag ,
Nice way of putting it, well said
Nice way of putting it and 100% accurate!
I like how you can tell he is picking really hard. The notes are big and bold and full of confidence!
They didnt have the amplification tech of today.. They would record big band performances with one mic, the guitarist had to play strong just to be heard
Charlie was such a beautiful musician. I remember when I first heard him and I thought, wow - that's just what soloing should sound like. Fresh and lively with a happy vibe.He was truly a great player and so darn young!!
I totally agree!
Very true. You put a talent like his in the context of an equally great band and it's as good as it gets. I don't think it's ever been done better by anyone since.
Charlie Christian used a thick pick and was a down picker, all down strokes, rarely up strokes, that is why he got this perfecly balance sound , machine gun timing, all notes have the same power, it take a fast wrist and practice.. this is well documented
delete this comment omg
@@guidemeChrist Why? Genuinely curious as I thought "that's how gypsys play" too.
Probably helped project the notes within the big bands he sometimes played with. Even with a 15 watt amplifier, you need all the help you can get to be heard sometimes. A thicker pick and downstrokes will do that.
In some of those photos, it looks like he’s not using a pick at all.
Amazing technique, imagination and tone. Unsurpassed🎸
O my goodness Charlie is one the greatest in the world period!!!!!!
Just flat out in the groove. I can almost hear his thinking through his playing.
No matter how many times I hear him his talent always blows me away,it is guitar playing in it's purest form and is yet to be surpassed.
I can't believe I've never listened to this man...he's fantastic,incredible...
Oh My Gentle Gee Whiz. ... This is just astounding. Year by year i revisit this and I hear and understand more. Charlie was such a genius of music, phrasing, notes... He was hundreds of years ahead of his peers. What a beacon of light in humanity. Never made it to age 26! All that creativity. All that originality. Man. This recording makes me feel alive.
Okay, now I get it.
Unbelievably imaginative. He was inventing everything we do today. Brilliant.
Invented the style and technique, played so great and left such a mark on the world.... and died at age 25. How does a dude make that level of contribution is such a short time? Amazing.
Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix and Charlie Christian, three astonishing guitarists who died way before their time.
Damn shame, really
Django Reinhardt too
Just 25 years old when he died in 1941. Played with the Benny Goodman band.
I'm always astonished at how he modulates from one chord to another perfectly without stopping. to think.
Very few people were acquainted with the sound of electric guitar in 41. Charlie completely blew their minds. Inspiring young six string slingers like Chuck Berry and Scotty Moore.
Charlie Christian is fabulous.
Just silent and listen to this gentleman....awesome.
Thanks for sharing this magic music!
That guy had it al! All those years ago. Super hip!
My jaw just dropped on the floor... This is beyond amazing... Killer tone, great lines... No surprise he was Wes Montgomery's mentor...
I love everything about these recordings -- even the pleasure in that due to the live setting it almost sounds as if there is a "slapback echo" on Charlie's guitar (I'm a rockabilly enthusiast)! So refreshing to hear him stretching out instead of a brief chorus on a Goodman record (as brilliant as they are).
During an interview, Stevie Ray Vaughan mentioned Charlie Christian as being an influence on his playing..wonderful really!!
LOve this.... always have.. always will.... Charlie always makes me smile .... inspirational .. oh, and by the way who are the fools that don't like this ?? LOVE IT ...
I play guitar. I play nothing like Charlie, and yet...he's in the air, everywhere, because his influence moved down the generations, and touched blues, blues-rock, rock, right on up to hard rock.
This is a guy who just played all the time, and it shows.
What a player. Wow.
Same to me, mate. I will probably never be a virtuoso like him, but he inspired me to do small solos next to the chord progression playing I am used to, and it gets to me, I am having more and more fun at it. GREAT musician and so wonderful you can indeed hear his influence everywhere still.
Mind-blowing. There's really no words to describe this! Charlie Christian is THE man on guitar.
Classic. NGO...Never Gets Old. Blessings
0:33 Ba ba ba!! That just F'n kills me!! Just chopping it. Then those lines that weave in and out sound like a kaleidoscope or fractal in their perfection changing and morphing. Seriously heavy mental stuff. Just incredible.
Wow, what an innovator Charlie Christian was!!! Today, people listen to this and don't see the big deal;however, what they do not understand, Charlie was the first guitarist to develop the single line improve with guitar. At the time, this really amazed people. It had never been done before! What makes a musician great? It is there ability to be an innovator. The biggest innovators in American guitar are Charlie Christian and Jimi Hendrix. In fact, Hendrix is the logical conclusion of Charlie Christian.
100% my two fav as well...unbelievably beautiful....first heard this in 1970, and its as fresh today as it ws then....listen to it a few times every year....
God I love this guy! I tip my hat to you sir.
Amazing. This dude laid down the law.
Genius wayyyy ahead of his time. Great technique.
God, what it must have been like seeing someone play the electric guitar like this in 1941 for people who were used to swing, in which the guitar normally serves as a rhythm instrument. He was so good, I mean he's playing things that wouldn't be touched until Wes Montgomery came along in the 50s. Fuck me, things like this makes me wish time travel was real. To be able to go back, sit in that club with scotch and soda, and lucky strike cigarette in hand, and watch Charlie up on that stage playing things most modern players couldn't play in their wildest dreams, fuck that would be such a dream come true. He's just so good, and inventive, and all over the place, it's so good for being really the beginning of this kind of guitar playing. If I had to choose between never getting to go back and see him live in this era, or else getting to do so with the catch being that I have to stay back there, and give the internet, and all these wonderful things, I'd honestly have to give that serious consideration, and I might actually do it. I mean, giving up the internet would suck, but, since all my favorite cars, and all my favorite fashion, and all my favorite music falls in between 1930, and 1980, I might actually do it if given the chance. I really could definitely live a good, happy, awesome life, I mean there was a little more anti-semitism back then, but it wasn't that bad, the US has never been an excessively anti-semitic place, its that American belief in religious liberty. So I could do just fine. However, I have a lot to give up in this time line here, so it would be a hard choice, but damn. He's just so good.
The Original T-Paine Know what ya mean. Get to work on the time machine. I’ll buy tickets. Go back and see Hendrix, see Beatles at Shea, Wes Montgomery in a club, Django in Paris jamming somewhere. But no color TV or remote.
I love it. But talking about anti semitism, there is an interview with Barney Kessel and he was playing a gig and saw his hero in the audience, Charlie, watching him and smiling. They talked after the gig, and went out to eat together. The first two places they could not eat together due to the Jim Crow laws, until they finally found a restaurant that let them eat together hidden in the kitchen. So you would have to deal with that shit as well when you got off of that time machine. Make America great again my ass. But good lord, what it must have been like to see Charlie blowing in Mintons redefining the guitar in real time would have been phenomenal to experience. The guy was just so damn good.
awesome guitaring - and Kenny Klook Clarke on drums too, father of bebop drumming
Sweet tones that still echo on today… thank you kindly for sharing!
So creative improviser...
Listening to this and wife goes…”Are you on hold?”
😏
Haha!!
LOL!!!! Right?!?!
This is where it all started ! Thanks Charlie !
THE FIRST pioneer electric guitar player. Influenced Jimi! Nuff said. Originally from Oklahoma.
This guitar level of expertise would make total sense today. The way he plays make it seems like he is got a whole band.
Decades ahead of his time! No CC there'd be no Wes, & everybody else. My theory is that if CC had lived longer the guitar would be more of staple instrument in jazz. Still sounds GREAT!
It's too bad his time was short. I'm glad he was around. If it weren't for him, Cliff Gallup wouldn't have been around and there wouldn't have been a Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps. There are countless others to name but thanks for sharing!
John Lennon said without Christian we wouldn';t have had T Bone Walker, Chuck Berry and hence guitar based rock. Lennon specified that his own guitar be fitted with a Charlie Christian pickup.
How cool is the "tube tone"? Crunchy... Fry em' up Charlie and thank you, :~}
Yeah. I think he played through a basic Premier amp with one 12" speaker. He proves that you don't need more than that.
may i add , what a powerful attack to the notes . That's part of it--the physical commitment -no limp flowery meandering .
Istvan Solihull jnj
An aggressive attack from a confident player.
raw & exciting -- one night at Mintons --
in my opinion one of the most enthralling recordings of all time
thanks for posting
Timeless contemporary sound from him. Real nice.
Thank you for assembling this wonderful collection of Photos to accompany CC's spectacular playing. What a gift TH-cam has given to jazz lovers!
And still #1 in 2020 Charlie Christian
I remember Tom and his buddies dancing to jazz guitar on Tom and Jerry. Talk about some cool cats.
Omg @ 0:17 he literally sweep picked. Sweep picking on 1941 man. He was ahead of his time. You could also say it was a rake but rakes are usually across muted strings. Crazy man just discovered this guy
What an incredible talent!!! And, that's obviously an understatement...
This is the first time I've heard him play. He was great and way ahead of his time. I think I even heard a bit of sweep picking in there!
Just absolutely great guitar playing. Makes me smile. Wow!!!
Wow, just wow. So joyful. A true master. Thank you so much for sharing this important piece of musicianship. Amazing! Brought tears to my eyes. A beautiful arrangement indeed!
The guy just never ran out of licks to play
+Jerry Renshaw This describes everything I was thinking but couldn't find the words to sum it up. That was hilarious!
playon51 licks can be applied as ideas
To a certain degree there were licks,or pet phrases.But CC was phenomenal.No doubt about it.
They're not just licks, they're all built on the changes of the song. I've analysed his swing to bop solo before, it's fucking nuts.
It is more practical and interesting to focus on lines instead of licks.
This guy rocked!
Almost ashamed to discover Charlie Christian and other early greats like Eddie Lang, Lonnie Johnson, Barney Kessel this late in my life (74). What great music and artistry. Thanks!
Charlie Christian, eldon shamblin and Barney Kessel. All Oklahoma boys. Eldon used to travel to Oklahoma City from Hydro to catch Charlie Christian playing.
The deaths of Charlie Christian, Chu Berry and Jimmy Blanton in 1941-1942 (and Herschel Evans earlier) were terrible losses to the world of music. All were young and on the advance guard; no telling how many great albums all would have made in subsequent decades. We're fortunate that Christian and Django Reinhardt left lots of recordings.
He finds all kinds of jazzy notes in between the blues
What a killer! Thanks for sharing that one! I think he was one of the most honest players I ever heard.
Geez great sound quality! Mr Christian remains top of the bill for me.
It's like listening to sunshine or how butter is made
LOL!! Nice
he was actually before diz and bird. He was discovered by Bennie Goodman and played in his small groups with Lionel Hampton in the '30s.
No Delay..Distortion.. Wha- Wha Pedals...Not even a Whammy Bar..Just Perfect Jazz Lines Magnificenly Played.
Incredible
Unbelievably great playing! Been meaning to check him out for a long time. Remarkable!
Max, he played with a pick. Those photos without a pick were publicity shots. See Barney Kessel's recollections of Charlie using a pick in the background below the video.
Check the cover of the free for all album. Ted's Birdland has no bridge. Photos are just photos.
Excellent video.
Loads of info. My partner put it in a book, "A Biography of Charlie Christian: Jazz Guitar's King of Swing." I wrote some essays that are on my old MySpace site under Kevin Michael Centlivre. Charlie liked horn players (Lester Young), guitar players not so much. He said he wanted his guitar to "sound like a saxophone SHOULD." He was regionally famous at an early age and exposed to many greats along the way. I gathered he played rhythm without a pick at times and used the pick to solo and riff.
this and Swing to Bop for the desert island 10
never tire of them
There is a very good boxed set of CD's called "Hittin' on All Six A History of Jazz Guitar" that has many great jazz guitar players, but is basically organized chronologically as pre-Charlie Christian, Charlie Christian, post-Charlie Christian. He influences styles to this day.
Does it have Wes and Django on it also? That sounds like a really cool set.
Bird was influenced by Christian's style too
Wow, sweep arpeggios at :42. He was ahead of his time. Also, his very melodic phrases are still impressive even by today’s standards. There’s people today who’ve been playing for longer than he lived and are still not as good as he was.
"sweep arpeggios?" where did you get that from?
@@peterchoe By listening. The time code is perhaps incorrect, but Mr Christian definitely plays a sweep picked arpeggio around 0:17-0:19 in this clip.
Certainly one of the primo Charlie jams...nothing else in the world like those old Minton's recordings. I used to have it on an old LP, but haven't heard it in years. Great collection of photos, too. Thanks, man!
What a musical mind. Endless, pure, pretty invention!
For other great Jazz electric guitar players of the time, you might like Oscar Moore, Les Paul, Tiny Grimes, Tal Farlow, Mary Osborne, Irving Ashby, Johnny Moore, Jimmy Raney, Eddie Durham(who actually taught Charlie Christian techniques for the electric)... I was gonna say Herb Ellis, but I see someone already did.
Took me awhile to get that riff at 0:42, but it was worth it. One of my favorites.
what a sound!
What a guitarist, fantastic!
Stellar.
Another great track of Charlie's awesome talent. Shame...both his life and this track cut short. Thanks for this, Wilson. Both this and Swing to Bop are deserving of top position on anyone's favorites list. Excellent post comment by the way. Like 2029, C248, V456483. /:-)
glad i found out about this guy, just started learning jazz guitar and this is awesome.
Jolly good!!
This sh!t is f**kin sick!
this is so hip
The swing factor to me sort of means you could really dance to it theoretically. When jazz stopped becoming dance oriented just like rock n roll or country it just gets wanky. Damn if Charlie Christian didn’t intuitively feel a sense of joyful energy he transmitted with every note, phrase and comp chord he played. He, like so many of the greats, never lost sight of that dynamic energy he was putting out.