The Charlie Christian Guitar Sound
by Wolf Marshall

Charlie Christian introduced and established what we commonly call today the classic "jazz guitar sound." The distinctive tone quality is produced by an arch-top hollow-body guitar, generally with f-holes, equipped with built-in electromagnetic pickups. This remains the standard into the 1990s; with contemporary players such as George Benson, Pat Metheny, Jimmy Bruno, Tuck Andress, Mark Whitfield and many others employing a similar type of instrument. Though there are sketchy accounts of Christian using Harmony, Vega and National guitars, his primary guitars were Gibson ES (Electric Spanish) models manufactured in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Charlie Christian chose the Gibson ES-150 for most of his playing. Originally announced in 1936, and shipped in quantites in 1937, the ES-150 became immortalized as the "Charlie Christian model." Christian is known to have played at least three different, perhaps more, ES-150s from 1937—1942. The ES-150 was essentially a 16-inch L-50 non-cutaway acoustic with a carved spruce arch top and maple back and sides. It had a mahogany neck with a very triangular "V shape," a rosewood fingerboard with dot inlays, and an ebony bridge. It was not considered to be a "top of the line" instrument. The ES-150 led inevitably to the development of the cutaway ES-175 which remains the most popular and versatile arch-top hollow-body electric guitar in the Gibson line. Had he lived Charlie surely would have played one when it was introduced in 1949.

The ES-150 was fitted with a single bar pickup, now generically known as a "Charlie Christian pickup," which was adjustable for height and a slight tilt in relation to the strings via three screws mounted on the top of the body between the pickup and the bridge. The pickup itself was close to the fingerboard and this factor no doubt contributed to the deeper bassy tone of the guitar. An output jack was located in the recessed base of the tailpiece. Christian adjusted the pickup closer to the body, away from the strings. This resulted in a warmer, more mellow "stringy" tone quality with less output.

Christian also played the fancier Gibson ES-250 guitar. Introduced in late 1939, this was basically an L-7 type with a larger, superior-grade 17-inch body, "open book" inlays on the fingerboard, and a modified "Christian pickup" with a deeply notched blade to better balance the string response. Christian is thought to have played at least four of these models between 1939 and 1942. The ES-250 was also favored by his friend and colleague T-Bone Walker in the early 1940s.

Christian plugged his ES-150s and ES-250s into Gibson EH (Electric Hawaiian) amplifiers. Of these, he used two models: the EH-150 and the EH-185. The smaller EH-150 was offered as a matched set with the ES-150 guitar for a total price of $150. It had a 10-inch speaker, 6 tubes and an output of 15 watts. The 150 had two controls: volume and a two-position tone change switch for bass or treble sound. The larger EH-185 was an early "piggyback" style with the electronics of the amplifier mounted in a metal case under its "flip top" lid. The case could be separated from the cabinet to form a two-piece amp head and speaker box unit. The 185 had a 12-inch speaker, 7 tubes and an output of 18 watts. The controls again consisted of only volume and tone, but included a variable tone change control.

What did it sound like? The combination of the bar magnet pickup in the neck position, the resonant hollow body and the small underpowered amps resulted in a thick, semi-clean tone ideal for the horn-like, single-note lines that characterized the Christian solo style. Though the amount of sustain and gain produced by the equipment would be considered minimal by today’s technical stanadards, the sound was quite revolutionary at the time and a radical departure from the acoustic guitar sounds heard in jazz previously. This basic tone Christian pioneered in the 1930s remains the classic "jazz guitar sound" to the present.

Listen here.