Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Charlie Christian was born Charles Henry Christian on July 29, 1916 in Bonham, Texas but his family moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma when he was a small child. He started performing as a dancer with his father and brothers as buskers to make ends meet. His father would later teach him to play guitar and inherit all his instruments by age 12. Attending Douglass School he was further encouraged in music but a disagreement in instrument led him to leave music and excel in baseball.

By 1936 he was playing electric guitar and had become a regional attraction. He jammed with many of the big name performers traveling through Oklahoma City including Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum and Mary Lou Williams who turned him on to record producer John Hammond. This led to an audition, recommendation to Benny Goodman, subsequently gaining national exposure with the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra from August 1939 to June 1941. By 1940 Christian dominated the jazz and swing guitar polls and was elected to the Metronome All Stars.

Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. One of the best improvisational talents of the swing era, his single-string technique combined with amplification helped bring the guitar out of the rhythm section and into the forefront as a solo instrument.

Christian’s influence reached beyond jazz and swing, and in 1966, 24 years after his death, Christian was inducted into the Down Beat Hall of Fame. In 1990 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2006 Oklahoma City renamed a street in its Bricktown entertainment district Charlie Christian Avenue. On March 2, 1942, Charlie Christian passed away at age 25.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Phil Upchurch was born July 19, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois where he learned to play the guitar and bass. He stared his career in the ‘50s working with Jerry Butler before becoming house guitarist for Chess Records. He also worked with The Kool Gents, The Dells, Gene Chandler, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and The Spaniels before going on to work with Curtis Mayfield, Otis Rush and Jimmy Reed.

Returning to Chicago he played and recorded with Woody Herman, Stan Getz, Groove Holmes, B.B. King and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1961, when billed as the Philip Upchurch Combo, his recording of “You Can’t Sit Down” sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold record.

In the mid-Sixties he was house guitarist for labels such as Sue and Cadet and after a tour in the Army, in 1967 Phil he recorded with Richard Evans, John Lee Hooker, Grover Washington, Jr. and Cannonball Adderley.

In the 70s he worked with Ramsey Lewis and Quincy Jones, led his own quartet with Tennyson Stephens, through the Eighties played with George Benson, Mose Allison, Gary Burton, Joe Williams, Natalie Cole, Carmen McRae and Michael Jackson.

By the 1990s he was working with Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff, recorded for Ichiban, Palladium and Ridgetop labels and remains an active session musician and bandleader.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Johnny Smith was born John Henry Smith on June 25, 1922 in Birmingham, Alabama but his family moved north during the Depression living in several cities before their final destination ending in Portland, Maine.

Smith taught himself to play guitar in pawnshops, which let him play in exchange for keeping the guitars in tune. At thirteen years of age he was teaching others to play the guitar. He got his first guitar after one of his students bought a new guitar and gave him his old guitar becoming the first guitar Smith owned.

Dropping out of high school, Johnny joined a local hillbilly band, Uncle Lem and the Mountain Boys, and travelled around Maine earning four dollars a night. His interest in jazz peaked after hearing jazz bands on the radio, started practicing playing jazz, left The Mountain Boys at eighteen and founded a jazz trio called The Airport Boys.

Equally at home playing Birdland or sight-reading scores in the orchestral pit of the New York Philharmonic and was one of the most versatile guitarists of the 1950s. He recorded for Roost Records, with his most critically acclaimed Moonlight In Vermont was named one of Down Beat magazine’s top jazz albums in 1952. His most famous musical composition is the tune “Walk Don’t Run” in 1955. Johnny Smith stepped out of the public eye/ear in the 1960s, having moved to Colorado in 1958 to teach and run a music store and to raise his daughter after the death of his second wife. The cool jazz and mainstream guitarist who actively participated in the jazz scene from 1935 to 1960 passed away on June 11, 2013.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

John Stein, born on June 19, 1949, was raised in Kansas City, Missouri and took up the guitar at a very early. His was musically educated on the instrument at Berklee College of Music, where he now holds the position of associate professor.

Stein collaborates with Boston hitters Bill Pierce, Kenneth Weinberger, John LaPorta and Bob Freedman but has graced stages with David “Fathead” Newman, Lou Donaldson, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Idris Muhammad.

John has published educational columns in Just Jazz Guitar Magazine, focusing on composition and arranging for jazz guitar. He has published arranging materials in a book titled Berklee Jazz Standards For Solo Guitar, as well as his compositional materials into two books.  Composing Blues For Jazz Performance, and Composing Tunes For Jazz Performance.

He has also performed in Europe, conducting tours in Germany, France, Switzerland Brasil and the States. As a mainstay on the jazz circuit, guitarist John Stein continues to record, perform and tour with his compositions and performances covering a range of jazz including blues, bebop, bossa nova and swing.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Talmage Holt Farlow was born on June 7, 1921 in Greensboro, North Carolina. He didn’t take up the guitar until he was twenty-one but within a year was playing professionally, although he had a reluctance to perform publicly. But, by 1948 he had joined Marjorie Hyams’ band, moved to Red Norvo’s group from ’49 to ’53 and after only six months with Artie Shaw’s Gramercy Five in 1953, Farlow put together his own group, which for a time included pianist Eddie Costa.

Farlow’s extremely large hands led to his nickname “Octopus” spreading over the fret board as if they were tentacles. In 1956 Down Beat magazine critics named him as the very best jazz guitarist in the world. Where other similar players of his day combined rhythmic chords with linear melodies, Tal preferred placing single notes together in clusters, varying between harmonically richened tones based on a startling new technique.

A supreme technician, renowned for his articulation, and smooth relaxed phrasing even at the most daunting tempos, Tal retired from full-time performing in 1958, returning to a career as a sign painter, playing only the occasional date.

He only made one record as a leader during 1960–1975, but emerged a bit more often during 1976–1984, recording for Concord fairly regularly before largely disappearing again. He was profiled in the documentary film, Talmage Farlow, and can be heard leading groups for Blue Note, Verve and Prestige. Guitarist Tal Farlow died of cancer in New York City on July 25, 1998 at the age of 77.

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