Charlie Christian - The Wholly Cats

Styles:  Guitar Jazz
Year: 2011
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 50:09
Size: 115,6 MB
Art: Front

(2:44)  1. Seven Come Eleven
(2:28)  2. Soft Winds
(2:45)  3. AC-DC Current
(3:00)  4. Till Tom Special
(3:22)  5. Gone with 'What' Wind
(3:17)  6. Six Appeal
(2:34)  7. Gilly
(5:03)  8. Waiting for Benny
(1:42)  9. Blues in B
(3:03) 10. Wholly Cats
(3:16) 11. A Smo-o-o-oth One
(2:47) 12. Poor Butterfly
(2:39) 13. Gone with What Draft
(4:30) 14. Air Mail Special
(4:04) 15. Breakfast Feud
(2:46) 16. Solo Flight

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. He played piano locally in Oklahoma, and began to utilize an amplified guitar in 1937, after becoming a student of Eddie Durham, a jazz guitarist who invented the amplified guitar. John Hammond, the masterful talent scout and producer, heard about Christian (possibly from Mary Lou Williams), was impressed by what he saw, and arranged for the guitarist to travel to Los Angeles in August 1939 and try out with Benny Goodman. Although the clarinetist was initially put off by Christian's primitive wardrobe, as soon as they started jamming on "Rose Room," Christian's talents were obvious. For the next two years, he would be well-featured with Benny Goodman's Sextet; there were two solos (including the showcase "Solo Flight") with the full orchestra; and the guitarist had the opportunity to jam at Minton's Playhouse with such up-and-coming players as Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, and Dizzy Gillespie. All of the guitarist's recordings (including guest spots and radio broadcasts) are currently available on CD. Tragically, he contracted tuberculosis in 1941, and died at the age of 25 on March 2, 1942. It would be 25 years before jazz guitarists finally moved beyond Charlie Christian. ~ Scott Yanow https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/charlie-christian/id520915#fullText

The Wholly Cats

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The Benny Goodman Sextet - Featuring Charlie Christian

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s

Time: 54:28

Size: 124.7 MB

Styles: Big Band, Swing, Guitar jazz

Year: 1989

Art: Front

[3:14] 1. Flying Home

[3:14] 2. Stardust

[3:10] 3. Memories Of You

[2:27] 4. Soft Winds

[2:48] 5. Shivers

[2:47] 6. Ac Dc Current

[2:57] 7. I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)

[3:15] 8. The Sheik Of Araby

[2:49] 9. Poor Butterfly

[2:58] 10. I Surrender, Dear

[3:11] 11. These Foolish Things

[2:52] 12. Good Enough To Keep (Air Mail Special)

[3:14] 13. Breakfast Feud

[3:22] 14. I Can't Give You Anything But Love

[2:34] 15. Gilly

[3:30] 16. On The Alamo

[2:41] 17. Gone With What Draft

[3:16] 18. A Smo-O-O-Oth One

Clarinet, Leader – Benny Goodman; Electric Guitar – Charlie Christian; Georgie Auld - Sax (Tenor); Artie Bernstein - Bass; Dudley Brooks, Johnny Guarnieri, Fletcher Henderson, Ken Kersey - Piano; Nick Fatool, Harry Jaeger, Jo Jones, Dave Tough - Drums; Lionel Hampton (Guest Artist) - Vibraphone; Cootie Williams - Trumpet. All tracks recorded in New York, from October 1939 to March 1941.

Over the course of Benny Goodman's career, the stars often lined up right and he found himself working in tandem with someone every bit as talented as he, whether it was Bunny Berigan, Fletcher Henderson, Harry James, Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton or Teddy Wilson. For a brief period after most of the above had left his employ, Goodman hooked up with guitarist Charlie Christian and the jazz world was never the same. Christian played in the big band and his "Solo Flight" was one of the first big-band staples built around the then new electric guitar, but his best work came with a handful of finely wrought gems as a member of Goodman's sextet. Sharing solo space with Goodman and Hampton, Christian gave the electric guitar a place in the music on sides like "Flying Home," "Air Mail Special," "Stardust" and "AC-DC Current," where his instrument seems to be bursting with ideas and ceaseless invention. Along with sides by Eddie Lang and Django Reinhardt's Hot Club of France, these are the recordings that made jazz guitar history. ~Cub Koda

Featuring Charlie Christian

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Charlie Christian - The Immortal Charlie Christian

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 1992
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 44:54
Size: 103,2 MB
Art: Front

(9:00)  1. Swing to Bop
(6:12)  2. Up on Teddy's Hill
(7:38)  3. Kerouac
(2:28)  4. Guy's Got to Go
(4:57)  5. Lips Flips
(3:00)  6. Blue n' Boogie
(3:12)  7. Hot House
(2:45)  8. Groovin' High
(2:50)  9. Dizzy Atmosphere
(2:48) 10. All the Things You Are

Aside from the name being misspelled on front and back cover, guitarist Charlie (not Charley) Christian was at the forefront of the bebop revolution. These ten tracks show why, and also gives rise to the notion of Christian being the first to wield an amplified electric guitar. The CD has a nice range of bop classics, three written by co-conspirator Dizzy Gillespie, two originals of Christian's, a lone standard, and a tribute to Jack Kerouac. This collection represents not only a smidgen of what Christian did before his career was tragically cut short, but opens a window into his grand contributions to jazz. Though only an appetizer and a bit flawed, it is tasty. ~ Michael G.Nastos http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-immortal-charlie-christian-mw0000122348

Personnel:  Bass – Nick Finton;  Drums – Kenny Clarke;  Guitar – Charlie Christian;  Piano – Kenny Kersey, Thelonious Monk;  Tenor Saxophone – Don Byas;  Trumpet – Dizzy Gillespie, Hot Lips Page, Joe Guy

The Immortal Charlie Christian

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Charlie Christian - Celestial Express

Styles: Guitar Jazz
Year: 1999
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 76:11
Size: 175,1 MB
Art: Front

(3:49)  1. Good Mornin' Blues
(2:31)  2. Way Down Wonder in New Orleans
(3:54)  3. Pagin' the Devil
(3:23)  4. One Sweet Letter From You
(6:00)  5. I Got Rhythm
(5:44)  6. Stardust
(4:40)  7. Tea for Two
(3:00)  8. Haven't Named it Yet
(2:56)  9. Stardust (again)
(3:30) 10. Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams
(4:25) 11. Jammin' in Four
(4:10) 12. Profoundly Blue
(3:57) 13. Celestial Express
(1:46) 14. Blues in B
(5:08) 15. Waitin' for Benny
(8:43) 16. Swing to Bop
(8:26) 17. Stompin' at the Savoy

Definitive's mini-anthology of classic recordings featuring pioneer electrically amplified guitarist Charlie Christian is an excellent core sample taken from his brief and eventful career. Note that Definitive has also issued what purport to be compilations containing all of Christian's complete live and studio recordings, as well as another more modestly proportioned sampler entitled The Genius of the Electric Guitar. Charlie Christian was like a will-o'-the-wisp, a strikingly creative sideman who appeared at studio sessions and live jams during a span of months only adding up to a couple of years before succumbing to tuberculosis at the age of 25 in 1942. On Definitive's Celestial Express, the guitarist is heard with various groups led by Lionel Hampton and Benny Goodman, with Edmond Hall's Celeste Quartet, and with the Kansas City Six (a band including Count Basie and Lester Young) at the second From Spirituals to Swing concert in Carnegie Hall. Christian accompanies sweet vocalist Eddy Howard (who sounded a bit like Gene Austin); jams out with a quartet including bassist Oscar Pettiford at the Harlem Breakfast Club in Minneapolis, MN; cooks with a sextet while waiting for Benny Goodman to show up and lead a studio recording session; and improvises freely in the wild and woolly atmosphere of Minton's Playhouse, an after-hours joint favored by young musicians seeking a loose and friendly environment suitable for collective artistic exploration. It's a fine taste of great music from a time when music was evolving as rapidly as all of the other arts near middle of the maelstrom of the 20th century. ~ arwulf arwulf  http://www.allmusic.com/album/celestial-express-mw0000105842

Celestial Express

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Charlie Christian, Dizzy Gillespie - After Hours (Remastered)

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 50:38
Size: 115.9 MB
Styles: Bop, Guitar jazz
Year: 1964/2000
Art: Front

[8:51] 1. Swing To Bop
[8:11] 2. Stompin' At The Savoy
[6:07] 3. Up On Teddy's Hill
[3:03] 4. Down On Teddy's Hill
[2:24] 5. Guy's Got To Go
[4:54] 6. Lips Flips
[6:12] 7. Stardust (Vers 1)
[7:29] 8. Kerouac
[3:22] 9. Stardust (Vers 2)

AFTER HOURS is an excellent live document of the early roots of bebop, capturing this exciting music in the process of being built by its pioneering architects. Recorded live in New York City at jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House in 1941, these tapes feature young modernists Charlie Christian, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, and Don Byas as they pushed the structural materials of swing toward something new and intense.

Beyond the historical significance of these sessions, however, the music is simply fabulous. There are revisions of "Stardust" and "Stompin' at the Savoy, " but the tunes are mainly blues-based improvisations, with plenty of syncopated play and stretched-out soloing from all involved. Christian's guitar takes center stage--his fluid, fleet-fingered style and mellow amplified tone have become such a stock part of jazz guitar, it is hard to remember that he almost single-handedly wrote the book. Though Gillespie gets double-billing on this set, he only appears on four of the nine tunes, but one can hear early hints of the advanced technical style that would explode in his work with Charlie Parker in the later '40s. This music is truly classic. ~AllMusic

After Hours (Remastered)

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Charlie Christian - The Genius Of The Electric Guitar

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s

Time: 49:06

Size: 112.4 MB

Styles: Bop, Guitar jazz

Year: 1987/2006

Art: Front

[2:45] 1. Rose Room

[2:44] 2. Seven Come Eleven

[2:59] 3. Till Tom Special

[3:12] 4. Gone With What Wind

[2:48] 5. Boy Meets Goy (Grand Slam)

[3:17] 6. Six Appeal (My Daddy Rocks Me)

[2:58] 7. Wholly Cats

[3:00] 8. Royal Garden Blues

[3:21] 9. As Long As I Live

[3:04] 10. Benny's Bugle

[3:04] 11. Breakfast Feud

[2:54] 12. I Found A New Baby

[2:45] 13. Solo Flight

[1:42] 14. Blues In B

[5:04] 15. Waiting For Benny

[3:20] 16. Air Mail Special

Charlie Christian's tragic death at the age of 23 is a firmly entrenched fact of jazz mythology. On The Genius of the Electric Guitar, which consists of various tracks recorded with the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra, Christian's revolutionary guitar playing is clearly displayed. In keeping with the era, each of these 16 songs is relatively short, with each soloist allowed only a chorus or two to make their statements. Paucity of time troubles Christian and his compatriots not a whit, however, and they let loose with concise, swinging lines. Of the other soloists on display here, Lionel Hampton and Goodman himself play admirably, but Christian is in a different league altogether, his sophistication remarkable. Exhibit A: his solo in "Rose Room." Logically constructed and rhythmically varied, it is nevertheless eminently singable. Supplementary evidence, for those not convinced, can be found on "Seven Come Eleven," "Solo Flight," and "Air Mail Special." Towards the second half of the disc there is a tendency towards more meandering, hookless charts, such as the studio throwaways "Blues in B" and "Waiting for Benny." The inclusion of these tracks, but the omission of the sides Christian recorded with his own quintet, is a puzzling choice on the part of reissue producers Bob Altshuler and Michael Brooks, and mars what is otherwise a first-rate selection of material. Nevertheless, The Genius of the Electric Guitar is a fine introduction, not just to Charlie Christian's brilliant and all-too-brief career, but to jazz guitar in general. ~Daniel Gioffre

The Genius Of The Electric Guitar

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