Solo flight - charlie christian theory

[Lupacante]

Hello. I am a blues-rock guitarist, although I recently heard this song and decided to transcribe it because I liked it so much. it took me a while, but I've finally got it down.

Problem is...I don't understand anything about it! What scales is he using? Coming from a pentatonic / blues scale background I have no clue.

Please, can someone explain it to me? Thank you very much!

Marco

[bird.land]

I'd love to hear that answer; maybe Paulo?

There are recordings of him playing in Mintons with Charlie Pearker et al that are fabulous.

i once had them in vinyl but a junkie "friend" emptied my house while I was away and I have never been able to track those ones down. what's good about them is he's not "under the gun" that was the big band. He had such a fluid intuitive musical mind, great improvisor. :-)

[sfocata]

Ah, Charlie Christian... one of my favourite subjects for discussion!

Originally Posted by Lupacante

Problem is...I don't understand anything about it! What scales is he using?

None! Or at least, not in the sense of "now I'll jam the A dorian for 4 bars". Apologies for the unsubtle plug, but I did a thing in the latest Guitarist about this approach to jazz soloing, but in case you haven't got that...

Before Miles Davis changed things (at least in mainstream terms) with the "modal jazz" approach on "Kind of Blue", jazz soloing was based more around the underlying chords than scales. In Charlie Christian's playing you've also got a huge dose of blues, so he's primarily using a mixture of chord notes, chord extensions (ie notes that *could* be in the chords, even if they're not actually there) and blues licks.

There's a great book you can get which explains CC's soloing approach, using a massive long solo he improvised at one of the legendary Mintons jam sessions...

http://www.melbay.com/product.asp?ProductID=20196BCD

But basically, you need to start off by looking at the notes in the underlying chords and finding ways to make melodic statements with them. Then look at how the major and minor pentatonic can be used to create little ideas around these chord notes (in a I-IV-V blues, the major pentatonic works well over the I chord, switching to the minor pentatonic for the IV).

Then you've got the extensions (like targetting the 9th of the underlying chord) and alterations (the b9th, for instance). Finally, you just vaguely suggest the existence of scales by using appropriate notes to join together the chord notes.

[Lupacante]

wow! thanks man

[bird.land]

excellent, thanks for that

[Nas]

Originally Posted by bird.land

I'd love to hear that answer; maybe Paulo?

There are recordings of him playing in Mintons with Charlie Pearker et al that are fabulous.

i once had them in vinyl but a junkie "friend" emptied my house while I was away and I have never been able to track those ones down. what's good about them is he's not "under the gun" that was the big band. He had such a fluid intuitive musical mind, great improvisor. :-)

I have that on CD somewhere....

Let me look for it...

I'd say that Christian is more than likely thinking about chords, not scales, if you look at the solos you'll see that there are quite a lot of chord tones being used.

[bird.land]

Originally Posted by Nas

I have that on CD somewhere....

Let me look for it...

I'd say that Christian is more than likely thinking about chords, not scales, if you look at the solos you'll see that there are quite a lot of chord tones being used.

Please please let me know...

[sfocata]

Originally Posted by bird.land

There are recordings of him playing in Mintons with Charlie Pearker et al that are fabulous.

This one (the solo featured in the book I just mentioned) is stunning...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLz4vYCW97Y

Even though I've been a huge fan of CC for ages, I always wondered how many of his solos on Benny Goodman recordings were composed (or at least improvised from well-used fragments). Going by the evidence of that solo, he could improvise on a vast scale... definitely one of the first bebop players.

[Paulo2]

Originally Posted by sfocata

This one (the solo featured in the book I just mentioned) is stunning...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLz4vYCW97Y

Even though I've been a huge fan of CC for ages, I always wondered how many of his solos on Benny Goodman recordings were composed (or at least improvised from well-used fragments). Going by the evidence of that solo, he could improvise on a vast scale... definitely one of the first bebop players.

How about a plug for your CC style jazz article this month Ade. A student just brought the latest guitarist mag in to a lesson and wanted to know more.
It's an excellent piece and I shall be off out tomorrow to purchase said mag on the strength of it!

Cheers
Paulo

EDIT Just reread your post Ade and noticed the plug, must..remember...eye..test..

[sam_m]

That clip is very cool! Tempted by the book - think I'll give your article a go first though.