Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
In commeration of the 90th anniversary of the manufacture of the first electric guitar in 1932 by A.C. Rickenbacker and associates and the 80th year since Charlie Christian’s passing.
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Charles Henry Christian was born July 29, 1916, the third son of Clarence Senior and Willie Mae Christian, in Bonham, Texas, 65 miles north east of Dallas, near the Texas-Oklahoma border. The eldest brother Edward was born December 24, 1907, and Clarence Junior, nicknamed “It,” came into the world July 30, 1911 in a part of the city called Tank Town. The area was so-named because a water tank belonging to Bonham Cotton Mills could be seen directly on the South horizon behind the Christian’s home.
Most black families in Bonham lived in ramshackle houses that belonged to the cotton mills and were rented by the workers for four or five dollars a month, but the Christian family lived in a four 10-by-12-room house lit by oil lamps with an outhouse out back. They attended the Methodist church across the street where Willie Mae played piano every Sunday. She also played piano at the local silent movie theater and was a maid at the Hotel Alexander alongside her mother and aunt.
Clarence Senior worked as a compress operator at the Bonham mill and filled in as a porter and a waiter at the hotel where his wife worked. The Christians were hard-working and generally better off than most black families in the segregated South. The father played several instruments, including violin, guitar, and trumpet, and he taught his sons to play as well.
In 1918 Clarence Senior lost his eyesight in a fever during an extended illness and the family moved to Willie Mae’s mother’s home in Oklahoma City. Charles became his blind father’s “lead boy,” and with Clarence Junior they later formed a buskers trio that performed on the sidewalks and street corners of Deep Deuce, the black, segregated business and entertainment district of Oklahoma City. In 1923 Charles was enrolled in the all-back Bryant School which later became the Page School in 1926.
During that same year Clarence Senior became ill again and after a few months he died at home. Before he passed he told Charles that the two family guitars now belonged to him as Clarence Junior had not shown the passion for music that Edward and Charles had. He also advised his son that he should not try to make a living by playing music for this was too difficult, particularly for a black man. He should use his talent to bring joy and happiness to himself and, moreover, to others in the name of Jesus Christ.
Edward, nine years Charles’ senior, played piano, leading bands in many Deep Deuce venues including Slaughter’s Hall, Ruby’s Grill, the Rhythm Club, the 29 Club, Honey Murphy’s clubs, the “Hole” at the bottom of the Acacia Hotel, and Joe’s Skyline at 4th Street and Eastern on the North edge, just outside of Deep Deuce. Unlike many black musicians, he also played some of the whites-only (except for service workers and musicians) venues, such as the Ritz Ballroom and Roosevelt Hall. Because he was black Edward Christian was paid less than white musicians, so earning a living was earning a hard dollar.
Edward kept his distance from the rest of the Christian family and didn’t go around them much. He was well known in Deep Deuce as a capable musician, band leader, music arranger, and music writer. Margretta Downey, Charles’ girlfriend, and mother to his daughter Billie Jean said, “I got the impression that he was just a little bit ashamed of the family.”
From the start Charles was playing single-note solos on the guitar, although this was not common for guitar players at this time. The guitar was traditionally a rhythm instrument, not intended for soloing. Nevertheless, Charles started out playing the blues, and one of his favorite tunes in his early playing years was “St. Louis Blues.”
In his formative years Charles was fortunate to have had two excellent music teachers – Zeliah Breaux from Douglas High School and Ralph Hamilton, also known as “Bigfoot Chuck,” from Deep Deuce.
Zelia N. Breaux was a well-educated, dedicated, disciplined music teacher and band leader for all the black students in Oklahoma City. Her father was a college president and later a high-school principal. She was in charge of the Chorus, the Orchestra, and the Drum Corp, as well as teaching Music Harmony at Douglass. She took the Douglass students to a marching band competition in Chicago annually, and most often they returned with a first-place prize.
Ms. Breaux was aware that Charles was the younger brother to Edward, who was an excellent music student and musician, but she did not like it that he spent his musical career playing in the jazz clubs. She had approached Charles about playing trumpet in the school band, but he said he preferred to play tenor saxophone, because blowing on a trumpet hurt his lip. The school had no saxophone for him to play, she said. She tried later to get him to play an instrument in the school band, but Charles said he didn’t have time as he was playing on the school baseball team, and had the reputation as a talented pitcher.
Ralph Hamilton spent a lot of time with Charles during his early years of playing guitar. Hamilton was recognized by many as the best guitarist in Deep Deuce, and he also played double bass. Charles met Dallas bluesman T-Bone Walker in Deep Deuce, the best blues guitarist he’d ever heard at that point. Charles was sixteen at the time, and he and Walker took double-bass lessons from “Bigfoot Chuck.”
Another Deep Deuce musician Charles learned from was Claude “Chicken” Burns, who played tenor guitar. Burns’ string band frequently jammed in the clubs and the alleys of Deep Deuce. Many said Charlie learned his style of guitar playing from a combination of two musicians – Ralph Hamilton and Claude Burns.
In 1934 Charles first heard Lester Young with his band the Blue Devils when they came to Oklahoma City; and was immediately blown away by the tenor saxophonist’s linear-flowing, lyrical lines, and he got up the nerve to ask Young to jam with him and Ralph Hamilton in the alleyway behind Honey Murphy’s Café. After their playing together the musician that Charles began to imitate Lester Young, at a young 17-years-old, also became his favorite soloist.
By 1935 Charles wanted to play with everyone in Deep Deuce and everyone in Deep Deuce wanted to play with Charles, even his older brother Edward. Charles was developing fast as a soloist, and he had begun to hold a microphone between his knees so his solos could be heard. Other guitarists were trying to use pickups on their guitars like Western Swing guitarist Bob Dunn, who used one on his round-hole Martin guitar. Floyd Smith was playing with a pick-up on his Hawaiian guitar which seemed to catch the ear of Benny Goodman, leader of the most successful swing bands in the world. Rickenbacker had manufactured an electric guitar in 1932 and was developing it with the goal of making it playable on stage.
One of the better groups of musicians Charles played with at this time was the nine-piece Leonard Chadwick Orchestra which played for an audience of 700 in Tulsa. Later Charles signed on with the 11-piece-and-vocals Leslie Sheffield and the Rhythmaires Orchestra. Charles was making $2.50 a night, and he was playing nearly every night. With help from his mother Charles was able to buy a new sunburst 1934 Epiphone Deluxe archtop, f-hole guitar. He still played the after-hours jams in Deep Deuce, and often a band member or a trusted bystander would hold up a microphone to his guitar so the audience could hear his solo lines.
In 1936 Charles played out of Oklahoma for the first time in the Texas Centennial which ran from June 6 to November 29. The word was out that musicians could earn a decent wage playing the jazz clubs during this celebration. Charles went down with five other Oklahoma City musicians and immediately got a job after he auditioned for the owner of a small ballroom called the North Dallas Club. Edward also came down a week later and landed a gig at the Silver Bullet Club.
Things went well for Charles and the other musicians in Dallas the first couple of weeks, but landlords raised their weekly room rent, and the price of food and drinks were raised too. After a month Edward was not earning what he expected, so he went home. Charles chose to stick it out a while longer and club-owner Nat Taylor talked to Charles’ landlord and the local restaurants to not raise prices on the black musicians, and they agreed, so Charles signed a contract for 30 more days. Word was out that white musicians were making double the amount of money that blacks were paid. Fed up with the unfair racist practices, he boarded a bus for Oklahoma City with the five musicians other musicians he arrived with.
After Charles returned he played at Ruby’s Grill and at the “Hole” which was directly across the street from Ruby’s Grill and was actually an old music rehearsal room. Andy Kirk wanted Charlie to go with him and his band to play bass in Deadwood, South Dakota, but Charlie turned him down saying he wanted to play guitar. Charlie accepted Al Trent’s offer in Deadwood at the Ole Style Saloon playing guitar, and he was billed as the greatest guitar player in the Mid-West. Then he went to Omaha and played with “Big” James Simpson’s 17-piece orchestra, fronted by vocalist Anna Mae Winburn, a very good-looking and talented singer.
In 1937 Gibson Guitar Company made Charles’ professional life much easier when it introduced its first electric Spanish guitar with a built-in bar pickup, the ES150 model. No more requiring someone to hold a microphone near the guitar top. No more holding a microphone between his knees in a sitting-down position. No more taping a small microphone near an f-hole on the guitar’s top. Just plug a cord into the guitar and an amplifier plugged into a standard wall socket, turn it on, and you’re ready to play as loud as you want to play, the instrument was advertised. Charlie tried one out at Jenkins music and was exhilarated by what he heard.
The advertisement for the ES150 read: “Another guitar miracle by Gibson – a true undistorted tone amplified by electricity. This guitar itself is a full sized Gibson – you hold it, tune it, and play it just as you would any guitar, and in appearance it is only slightly different – but strike the strings slightly and you hear a tone that can be amplified to any volume you desire. Adjust the tone control and you change the tonal color from a rich bass to a brilliant treble. The pickup unit is built inside the guitar and perfectly adjusted at the Gibson factory for balanced tone.”
Anna Mae Wilburn’s orchestra played a gig at Municipal Auditorium and Jimmie Simpson and Charles stopped off at Jenkins Music to try out the new Gibson ES150 electric guitar and amplifier. Charlie loved the sound, so did Simpson, and Jenkins was amazed at the sound and Charles’ playing ability. They set up a deal of 18 installment payments and Charlie left the store with the guitar, amplifier, cords, and ten sets of strings for the rest of the tour.
Anna Mae Winburn’s Cotton Club Orchestra’s bus pulled out of Oklahoma City at 8:30 the following morning on a schedule that included gigs in St. Louis, Kansas City, Des Moines, Lincoln, and Bismark. Their tour would cross the paths of some of the most popular names in jazz in the country: Duke Ellington, Nat Cole, the Mills Brothers, and Louis Armstrong. Simpson planned on featuring Charles as the main soloist in the orchestra with his new electric guitar.
The tour was a success and when he returned to Oklahoma City everyone wanted to hear Charles play his new Gibson electric guitar, so he played, and played, and played. The Deep Deuce musician and fans consensually agreed that Charles Christian was the most talented musician in Oklahoma City, and if anyone from the city would make it to the big time it would definitely be him.
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Ruby’s Grill on N.E. Second St. was remodeled and restored in April, 1939 and re-opened May 11 with a 12-piece orchestra led by Ralph Hamilton playing through the end of the month. Owner Ruby Lyons said she wanted a four-or-five piece band to play starting June 2, and as Charles and his electric guitar was the hottest item in town, she asked him to see if he could help her out.
Charles put together a quintet with band members from Al Trent’s and Jimmie Simpson’s bands who had toured the Mid-West together. The band included Leslie Sheffield on piano, Henry Bridges on tenor, Abe Bolar on bass, Wesley Simms on drums, and Charles on electric guitar. They began the gig on June 2 and were to play through the end of the month. Each musician was paid $2.50 per night.
To enter Ruby’s one walked up the stairs from Valentino’s Cafe and turned right to enter the club or turned left to enter the restaurant which had long been known to serve delicious Southern fare and at reasonable prices. Ruby also catered private parties in Oklahoma City. The bandstand was at the South end, elevated slightly on the wall. The dance floor could accommodate 350. From the day of its’ re-opening the restaurant and club was packed for a solid month. Ruby claimed 1600 customers came into either the club or the restaurant on opening day.
Charles’ band was well-received, even loved by the Deep Deuce audience. And other venues, including Slaughter’s Hall, were looking to hire Charles in the future. But one event had the potential of changing Charles’ life forever.
Mary Lou Williams, vocalist and pianist for Andy Kirk’s Clouds of Joy, had heard Charles play while their bands were touring the Mid-West, and she was thrilled with his natural dexterity and his sound on his instrument. She told John Hammond, record producer and an executive at Columbia Records that Charles was “a genius, a wizard on the Epiphone guitar,” and that Hammond had to hear him play.
Hammond had been persuading Benny Goodman to try out some guitarists in his Swing band. Goodman said he liked the whine of Floyd Smith’s electric steel guitar and offered to buy up Smith’s contract, but Hammond found Smith’s sound “ghastly.” Directed by Hammond, he asked Mary Lou Williams to find out if Charles were offered the opportunity to record and tour with Benny Goodman, would he take it?
“Mary, I’ll join if you will too,” Charles answered.
She wired Hammond that day saying Charles had agreed to an audition, a bit of a white lie. Hammond’s responded saying he was flying out to Los Angeles in early August for a recording session with Goodman, and he would stop by Oklahoma City for the audition on his way West. Word slowly got passed around that a local man – one of Oklahoma City’s most talented – was going to meet with a Columbia records executive and the “King of Swing” Benny Goodman. The entire Deep Deuce area was astir with gossip about their hometown boy being auditioned by a New York City record executive.
John Hammond arrived August 2 at the Oklahoma City airport, and was picked up by Charles’ bandmates and taken to the Huckins Hotel just outside Deep Deuce. Later that day Hammond heard Charles’ band, but he was only impressed by the guitarist. He noticed Charles was playing a non-electric guitar, and he found out Jenkins Music Store had repossessed Charles’ Gibson ES150. Hammond had the guitar returned to Charles, and he told him he wanted Charles to meet Benny Goodman in Los Angeles in the near future and then the record producer departed.
The date was set for Charles to go to Los Angeles by train on August 14th and there was a send-off party at Ruby’s Grill the day before. Charles arrived in the studio on the 16th and waited and waited for Goodman to meet him; finally Hammond took him into the studio and introduced him. Goodman seemed preoccupied and when Hammond asked for the two to play something together, Benny said, “Okay. Play some chords behind this,” and they played for a couple of minutes and Benny put down his clarinet and walked out.
Hammond apologized and told Charles to go to his hotel and they would send for him when it was time and he could play with Benny onstage. Benny was taking a short break when Charles came to the Victor Hugo Ballroom, so Hammond put him on stage with his guitar, and when Benny got back on stage he looked displeased and called out the tune “Rose Room.” He probably didn’t think Charles knew the tune but the guitarist had done it many times in his band. When it came Charles turn to solo he poured it on line after line, never playing the same string of notes twice. Benny let Charles play on chorus after chorus and the audience was digging on the music too. Euphonius.
When he left the stage Charles was told to sit at Hammond’s table and wait until theyband was finished. After the encore Charles was taken backstage where Benny Goodman shook his hand and greeted him.
“Charlie Christian welcome to the band,” Goodman said.
“Thank you, Mr. Goodman,” Charlie said nervously.
“Please call me Benny,” Goodman said, “and I’ll call you Charlie.”
“Yes sir,” Charlie responded.
Benny informed Charlie that he would be paid $150.00 a week, a considerable increase from the $2.50 a night he earned at Ruby’s. Also the King of Swing introduced him to the other band members: Fletcher Henderson, piano; Lionel Hampton, vibraphone; Artie Bernstein, double bass; Nick Fatool, drums, and Jimmy Maxwell, trumpet, who joined the same time as Charlie. Benny christened them the Benny Goodman Sextet, and their first appearance and radio show was the following day, August 18, at the Hollywood Bowl.
“You’re the Pres of the electric guitar now,” Lionel Hampton said to Charlie, using the moniker “Pres,” as tenor player Lester Young was known by.
Their plane left the next day, made a stop in Wichita, and went on to New York, and then the band went to the Steel Pier in Atlantic City for a week of playing, and a broadcast on August 23. Then it was on to Montreal for the Canadian National Exhibition, and then to Detroit for the Michigan State Fair, with another broadcast on September 2. On September 11 he attended a recording session with Lionel Hampton, where he met renown tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins
Typically, Charlie would ride quietly at the back of the bus playing Lester Young on his portable record player. Charlie drank very little alcohol but occasionally he would smoke marijuana, as did many musicians at this time. He’d play the gig with Benny and the band then go to a musician’s after-hours club to jam.
On October 1, 1939 Charlie appeared at a Gibson Guitar seminar to promote the new blonde-topped ES250 guitar and matching amplifier. The event was advertised in Downbeat magazine, the #1 publication for jazz music. Five days later he played Carneige Hall for the first time, and he was the featured soloist of the sextet. On October 10 the band made a recording with blues singer and vaudeville performer Ida Cox. After this gig the sextet played the Waldorf Astoria for the next three months.
Around December 10 Benny replaced pianist Fletcher Henderson with Johnny Guarnieri, who played in a freer style than Henderson. Benny felt Henderson’s bass note, chord; bass-note, chord; bass note, chord style of playing was too restrictive, and no longer fit the band’s more relaxed rhythmic feel. The band was also featured on a “Fitch Bandwagon” broadcast from the Waldorf Astoria on New Year’s Eve.
The January 1, 1940 Downbeat Reader’s Poll voted Charlie #1 guitarist in the country after only four-and-a-half months of being an active musician on the national scene. Charlie returned home for a two-week vacation, and the The Black Dispatch Oklahoma City’s black newspaper, published by black-rights activist Roscoe Dunjee, praised him for his exemplary behavior towards his family and friends. The jazz guitar sensation arrived home dressed in a dark chalk-white-striped tailored suit and a gray hat and black patent leather shoes. The local boy was doing very well judged by his appearance. Charlie enjoyed his time with his family, and returned to New York on January 14 and joined the band in a date playing for a live broadcast to Scandinavia.
All through his career Benny had been bothered with back problems (sciatica), and he was in a lot of pain, so he took a week off. When he returned the band did a number of gigs in New York, attended a recording session, and then went to Pittsburg, Indianapolis, and the Chicago Theater for a date on February 23rd.
It was here that Charlie first became ill, and having a temperature of 104, he was hospitalized. X-rays showed that he had tuberculosis scars on his lungs, and the doctor ordered him to take a rest of at least four weeks. Benny’s back problems came back, and he took two weeks off to see a doctor in Minneapolis. Arnie Bernstein and Nick Fatool joked about how Benny was hopped up like a bunny rabbit from taking pain pills and sometimes drinking liquor on top of the medication.
Charlie did not follow the doctor’s orders and he went out to Los Angeles to reunite with the band on March 19 at the Cocoanut Grove Room at the Hotel Ambassador. After playing with the band he soon began walking along Central Avenue where the best musicians around in L.A. went to jam. Audiences and musicians were in awe of this guitar player, most of them thinking he was a guitar genius. He kept going and going and going with his solos, on and on, creating one line after another, none of the notes or phrases the same. No one could swing like Charlie Christian did, many a Californian musician said.
The band moved on June 5 to the beautiful Catalina Island their dates at the dinner hour at the St. Catherine Hotel and at nights at the Casino for dancing. In daytime hours there was lots of sunshine and games to play, in the evening go to the hotel for dinner and afterwards playing the casino games and dancing. They were scheduled here for two months, but on July 10 Benny’s back pain became so bad he had to stop the tour, and he flew up to Rochester, Minnesota, once again for treatment.
Benny officially disbanded the sextet on July 15, with a few, including Charlie, kept on salary. The announcement was made by Benny that there was a movie going to be made of his band and sextet at Republic Studios. This never happened. Rumors were flying about Benny Goodman and his band. Were the days of Swing music finished, over at last? Many asked. What was out there to take its place? Was John Hammond suing Benny? Was Benny suing John Hammond? Was Benny’s illness just a face-saving way of bowing out of the music business? Many questions remained unanswered, and many were probably unanswerable as well.
Charlie spent nearly two months relaxing at home, dropping in at Ruby’s now and then, so many people in Deep Deuce saying I saw Charlie here, I saw Charlie there. And he was wearing this or that, and that or this. And he was with him or her, and her or him. And on and on.
Overall, Charlie said he felt relaxed; he played when he wanted to and didn’t play if he didn’t want to. He drove into town in a new 1940 Buick Torpedo; he was driven around town by Hillman Pittman in that new 1940 automobile, and he drove out of town in the same automobile. No one could recall him saying anything about his health, but he looked and acted quite well with his ever-present smile, his soft voice, and his gentlemanly ways.
Around September 20 he got a call from someone in the Goodman organization telling him to come back to New York City. On his way back Charlie stopped off in Kansas City’s Lincoln Hall to sit-in on a Sunday night dance with Harlan Leonard’s Kansas City Rockets and 260 dancers. Rumors were that Charlie jammed all night in an unnamed club with a tenor player named Charlie Parker.
Charlie returned to New York and had a recording date to play on October 4 with vocalist and bandleader Eddie Howard. Benny and Charlie were dropping in at the clubs in New York for jams with various musicians. Benny claimed his new band was together on October 18, but actually this was only a rehearsal. Benny and Charlie sat in with the Count Basie band the following night. They got together again at Columbia Studios along with Charlie’s favorite musician Lester Young.
On November 6, Benny signed trumpeter Cootie Williams - taking him from Duke Ellington’s band - to a one-year contract. The next day Benny was in the recording studio, reportedly with his new “small band” which included new members Williams, Georgie Auld on tenor saxophone, and Count Basie, who was working on a contract which would allow him to play and record with Goodman while retaining rights to keep his orchestra. Artie Bernstein would return on double bass from Goodman’s last band, and Harry Jaeger was currently Benny’s designated drummer. This was the new Benny Goodman Septet, and consensual agreement by jazz fans and critics was that this was the best seven-man band Benny had led to date. There was great hope and an overall general feeling that something new was in the air for jazz music world.
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The 1941 New Year issue of Downbeat’s Reader’s Poll results showed Charlie taking first place as best guitarist by a landslide with 4450 votes. Second place went to Hy White with 1350 votes, French gypsy-jazz guitarist Django Reinhart only got 124 votes. It was easy to see who jazz listeners wanted to hear live and on recordings – the young man from Oklahoma City was taking all the accolades.
Charlie was often playing after hours at a club that re-opened in October 1940 at 220 West 118th Street between Seventh Avenue and St. Nicholas in Harlem. He played a major part in making the club a legend, along with the house band – Kenny Clarke on drums, Joe Guy on trumpet, Nick Fenton on double bass, and Thelonius Monk on piano. Minton’s Playhouse was smoking up to the wee hours in the morning. It closed at 4 a.m., and it became known as the domicile where a new style of jazz was created and later flourished – Bebop.
Monroe’s Uptown House at West 134th Street also became well known among the after-hours clubs when a young trumpeter named Dizzy Gillespie who played with Cab Calloway, and Monroe’s was easy to go to after he finished. Monroe’s opened at two or three o’clock and stayed open to seven o’clock in the morning sometimes. Then the musician would go out and eat and come back to Monroe’s at 2 a.m.
Charlie preferred Minton’s and he was welcomed and loved by those who came to jam. Thelonious Monk complained about some who came in to jam but were actually too short on talent for this group, so they ran them off by calling out odd keys, double and triple timing lines, and not allowing the amateurs to solo on a chorus. From the beginning of the re-opening the musicians set out to find something new in their style of playing jazz. Swing was finished as far as those who played at Minton’s were concerned.
Teddy Hill, who was put in charge of the back room where the musician’s played by owner Henry Minton, even bought and kept an ES150 guitar and matching amplifier - at the cost of $155.00 - on the premises for Charlie. He did not have to pack his guitar and amp to the gig, as they were waiting for him at the club. Hill never sold the equipment, even up to his death in 1978. Also, when Benny accompanied Charlie to the club, out of respect for Goodman, the house band and other musicians played Swing-style music. But clearly the music at Minton’s was – as house-band drummer Kenny Clark had heard Charlie say the word first, and he had heard him use it over again when scatting ideas to other musicians - “Bebop.”
Teddy also designated Monday nights as Celebrity Nights, as most working musicians had Mondays off. It was known that Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Holiday sang with Charlie on one Celebrity Night. Fats Waller also showed up to play on this special Monday night event.
Benny gave the band a week off for Mother’s Day, and due to time constraints and his desire to spend time with his family for Mother’s Day Charlie chose to fly to Oklahoma City. He had sent a wire to his family telling them he was coming, but to keep his trip a secret as vacation time was short. He did not mention the strenuous recording sessions coming up with the full orchestra and the summer tour of the Mid-West cities, some of which were to be broadcast, when he returned from his one-week vacation. The long air trip had been made somewhat more relaxing by his occasional breaks to smoke marijuana, but still when Edward met him at the station with Henry Butler driving his car, Charlie was exhausted.
Edward told his younger brother he needed to take a rest, and Charlie assured him he would. As soon as they arrived home his Mother hugged him and said the same thing about his appearance. Charlie told Edward’s wife to get a pencil and paper and write down what everyone wanted to eat from Ruby’s, and then call in the order. Charlie sat at the head of the table and he never moved from his chair for the longest time.
The family seemed to eat all day long – Ruby’s steaks, chicken, mashed potatoes, and fresh-baked dinner rolls. Willie Mae told Charlie he needed to stay home for a month and she’d put some weight on him. This is how his weeks-vacation was going to go, but Charlie did not mind one bit. He was glad to be with his family even though they all told him he looked thin and tired.
The week was up in a flash and Charlie did feel much better, but his Mother continued to try to coax him to stay. No, they had dances, broadcasts, and recordings to attend to, many promises to keep. He left the tear-eyed ladies and Henry picked him up in the car, and he and Edward smoked a spliff and Charlie said that would keep him relaxed the whole trip back. They saw him off and he went to his departure gate smiling that full-toothed Charlie smile from ear-to-ear.
They sextet the Madison Square Garden dance on May 30, and as they were packing to leave for Detroit, Charlie collapsed. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where doctors pronounced his condition as fair. He didn’t know it at the time, but he would never play with the Benny Goodman Band again. On June 11 he was transferred to the Sea View tuberculosis sanitarium on Staten Island, and this would be where he would spend the remaining days of his life.
He wasn’t in the hospital long until the band members came to see him and to cheer him up, as they were full of jokes. They brought him records to play on his portable record player.
Teddy Hill told him about the rising star tenor saxophone player Charlie Parker, whom Charlie had jammed with once in Kansas City.
“Is he really that good now, Teddy?” Charlie asked his friend, who came to visit him every Sunday.
“He’s that good, Charlie. He’s playing nearly every night at Minton’s,” Teddy told him.
“Is he better than me?” Charlie asked sheepishly.
“There ain’t nobody better than you, Charlie,” Teddy answered. “The Downbeat readers named you best guitarist for the third year in a row.”
“Well, what do you know about that? They remember me,” Charlie said.
“People will always remember you Charlie,” Teddy replied consolantly.
Charlie’s condition seemed to improve around New Year’s, but then shortly after Valentine’s Day it took a turn for the worst.
On March 2, 1942, Charlie passed on peacefully in an afternoon of calm slumber.
Charlie’s funeral service was held on March 9, 1942, at the Calvary Baptist Church on Walnut and Second Street in one of the largest funeral services ever held in Oklahoma City, according to the Black Dispatch. Following a service at the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Bonham, Texas, Charlie was laid to rest there at Gates Hill Cemetery on March 10, 1942. The world had lost the greatest guitar player internationally. Up to the day he passed on there was no one who did more to make the guitar a solo instrument in a jazz band or an orchestral setting than the inimitable Charlie Christian. In the 22 months he played with Benny Goodman he rose to the position of the number one jazz guitarist in the country, the Pres of the electric guitar. Yes Charlie, we remember you. We will always remember you.