Search - Charlie Christian :: Complete Studio Recordings

Christian, born again

john lewis | Brooklyn | 09/06/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"...so fine, this set does not contain every single take of every song christian ever played on. but seriously, who needs to hear 7 versions of wholly cats or 11 versions of breakfast fued? if you need to ... out that hard (oooh, he played a different line in the third bar of his solo on the 6th version!!!) then go buy the columbia box set when it comes out. frankly, i was looking forward to getting that set, but when i saw how bogged down it is with countless alternate takes of benny goodman tunes, i got depressed. then i see this one (which, for the record i bought and listened to) and see that it has exactly what i was hoping for in a christian box set, namely his recordings with people other than benny goodman. sure, it contains all the goodman material (after all, it is some of charlie's best stuff), but also has all the stuff he recorded with others; lionel hampton, ida cox, metronome all stars, eddy howard, hall/lewis quartet & the goodman/basie/young session. this gives you a wider range of what he did than just listening to the same goodman tracks over and over again. and for the record, this set IS in chronological order (by date recorded), while he vaguely insinuates that it isn't. discs 1-3 contain the master takes (what was released) for each tune and are in chron order. disc 4 contains studio outtakes and jams. instead of inserting them where they should go on #s1-3, they put them all on disc 4 and put them in order. fine, overall, yes 1-4 are not in order. but 1-3 are in order and 4 is in order on it's own, so it's not like they just mashed everything together with no rhyme or reason.overall, the sound quality is great, but while the liner notes are wonderful with the session dates & personel, they completely fall short on any solid information (either biographical or critical) on charlie christian. two paragraphs of generic copy and that's all you get, which is a shame considering the breadth of this collection.so, if you've heard the classic goodman tunes and also the minton's/monroe's stuff and still hunger for more charlie christian, you can choose to either a)wait for the columbia box set which has between 4-11 takes of almost every song, but is mostly just the benny goodman stuff, b)get the box set of live/broadcast stuff (which looks pretty nice itself, hell it's affordable enough) or c)get this one and have the variety of all his studio recordings (not just the goodman ones), without getting overly bogged down by alternate takes."

Great for those who love Christian or jazz from the 30

Patrick Burnette | Crawfordsville, IN USA | 07/01/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Most critics consider Charlie Christian the first important electric guitarist in jazz and an crucial bridge between swing and bebop. For a long time, however, it has been relatively difficult to collect Christian's music because his work was released on several labels and haphazardly repackaged. Definitive Records has addressed this problem by releasing two box sets of his music: the Complete Studio Recordings and Complete Live Recordings . Only the possessor of a definitive discography knows if either set is complete, but the Complete Studio Recordings includes all the sessions I've heard about, including five tracks used to flesh out John Hammond's "From Spirituals to Swing" `live' set, five tracks of studio jams and three alternate takes (all collected on disc four of the set). It does not include a complete set of "alternate" takes, however, and if one expects every note Christian recorded in the studio, this set will disappoint. Definitive, however, is quite open about not offering alternates (both liners and track listings make this clear) and while this policy has historical limitations, musically it has much to recommend it. Definitive Records has offered a number of such sets in the last couple of years, including a delightful Lee Wiley compilation and six discs covering Louis Armstrong's early years on Decca. These collections take advantage of lapsed copyrights to offer chronological looks at an artist's work, in contrast to official releases, which are usually limited to the label or labels owned by a given corporation. This label-blind approach helps the consumer, since otherwise one has to follow a musician's career in starts and fits depending on which label keeps material in circulation, and it hardly harms artists who have been dead for decades and saw little income from their recordings in any case. Unfortunately, sometimes the quality of the sound suffers, since independent labels rarely have access to original masters. Definitive's record is mixed (scratched?) in this regard. Blessedly, they do not smother their recordings in noise reduction and thus provide lively and detailed sound. The Armstrong discs present his trumpet as vividly as any I've heard: it's a cliché, but that horn really does send chills down your spine. On the other hand, Definitive can be remarkably careless about tracking down clean sources to master from. Their Ellington "Blanton /Webster" set seems to have been taken from 78s used as frisbees, and the Lenny Tristano single disc has similar problems. In the case of the Christian Studio Recordings, the sound is well above the Definitive average. Either these 78s are common or a staffer tracked down a relatively pristine collection. The packaging is fairly minimal, with only a couple of semi-translated paragraphs on the guitarist's career, but personnel is listed for each session and the visual design competes with the majors.Listeners turning to the set solely in order to hear Christian will be disappointed. None of the included sessions was recorded with the guitarist as leader; he does not solo on every number and often plays only half a chorus when he gets the spotlight. As long as you enjoy the music of this period, however, you'll love this set. Christian kept excellent company. Lionel Hampton, Benny Goodman, Henry "Red" Allen, Cootie Williams and other heavy-hitters from the `30s make sterling appearances. There are very few weak tracks, rare enough in a box set, and any one of the four discs can be listened to from start to finish with pleasure.On the basis of this material, Christian's greatest contribution to jazz was showing how the electric guitar could be a viable solo instrument. He sounds strikingly different from major predecessors like Django Reinhardt (whose affair with electricity was star-crossed) Eddie Lang or Lonnie Johnson (though Johnson is his closest acoustic cousin) and it's clear how his linear approach could easily be adopted to bop, although harmonically Christian seems firmly swing. He plays unpretentiously, with a countrified edge to his sound that wouldn't be out of place on an early Elvis single. His solos don't feature jaw-dropping technique, and his ideas, frankly, sometimes seem mundane. Of course, Christian had dozens of imitators to ossify his fresh ideas into cliché, so you can hardly blame him for the impression he makes on early twenty-first century listeners. His playing never strains and never fails to propel the listener happily from bar to bar. The recordings he made from 1939 to 1941 offer gems from a period when uncomplicated joy was the reigning aesthetic and small groups the best place to get "real jazz.""