The Genius of the Electric Guitar is an aptly-named compilation of studio recordings that Charlie Christian made with Benny Goodman between 1939 and 1941. The album includes a couple of informal studio jams recorded while Goodman’s band was waiting for their leader to show up. Both jams have self-explanatory titles: “Blues in B” and “Waiting For Benny.” The latter one is where the real magic happens.
After a minute and a half of jamming in the key of A, Charlie Christian suddenly cues the band into a tune. Its key is ambiguous at first, but once the piano comes in, it quickly reveals itself to be F. I had always known this tune simply as “Waiting For Benny,” as do many other jazz fans. However, Benny Goodman later recorded it under the title “A Smo-o-o-oth One.” Apparently this recording was made at the same session as “Waiting For Benny”, though the documentation is unclear.
Goodman claimed the songwriting credit for “A Smo-o-o-oth One”, but it’s very likely that Charlie Christian or another member of the band came up with it. Unfortunately, it was common practice for swing bandleaders to take ideas from their sidemen without giving credit.
“A Smo-o-o-oth One” has its charms, especially the dissonant cluster chords that Christian plays on the intro. However, it can’t compare to the smoking hot groove of the “Waiting for Benny” version. Jazz lore says that the band came up with it right on the spot, but that could not possibly be true. The form snaps together immediately, with a bridge and everything. These guys were great improvisors, but not telepathic; they must have been working on the tune already.
Anyway, wherever “Waiting for Benny” came from, it’s a banger. The first two notes of the melody are a bluesy tritone jump from the sixth of F major, D, down to the flat third, A-flat… sort of. Christian is bending that bottom note up from G, and he doesn’t quite bend it all the way up to A-flat. There’s a good bet that he’s aiming for the 7/6 just intonation minor third, 33 cents flatter than the standard one from twelve-tone equal temperament, a commonly used blue note. The 7/6 third between G and A-flat is the 7th harmonic of B-flat, the IV in the key of F. I use this note in my guitar playing all the time, as do many rock, blues and country players.
After that blue-note-based approximate tritone, “Waiting For Benny” turns into a straightforward riff-based swing tune. For the B section, I transcribed Cootie Williams’ trumpet ad-libs.
A note about the guitar tab: I learned from Miles Okazaki that Charlie Christian hardly ever used his left hand pinkie, so if you want to sound like him, stretch that ring finger. And do not miss Okazaki’s transcription and analysis of Christian’s mindboggling solo on “Stompin’ at the Savoy”.
Anyway, in “Waiting for Benny”, my mind rebels at seeing all those phrases starting on Bdim7. I want to hear it as a G7(b9) or something. But that would make you expect C7 next, not Bb6. It doesn’t matter what my expectations are; the rhythm section is unambiguously playing Bdim7, not any form of G7. It’s a strange choice, but it goes well with the blue note.
Charlie Christian played a lot more notes between the piano keys than most jazz guitarists who followed him. His influence was enormous given his brief life, but after his untimely death in 1942, jazz guitar become more horn-like, and then more pianistic. Christian’s blues bends ended up influencing rock and country more than jazz. If he had lived to age 75 instead of 25 and kept playing at such a brilliant level that whole time, who knows how differently jazz guitar would have evolved?