Transcription Page:     Flying Home  —  19 August 1939

C&A:

The “Camel Caravan” radio series featuring the Goodman band had been aired every Saturday night for the past three years and would continue for four more months until the end of 1939.  Tonight’s half-hour program – performed this one time at The Hollywood Bowl – included several tunes by the orchestra (less Charles) and one by the sextet.

Having been hired into the sextet just three days earlier, this was Charlie Christian’s first gig.  Fortunately, one of the two pieces recorded on this evening’s program was the selection by the sextet featuring Charles – his very first recorded solo on his own composition, Flying Home.  Straightaway a superb fully-formed soloist is revealed.

CC starts off with a four-note figure that he subsequently used on several other recorded versions of the tune – here the figure is repeated four times, more than on any of the other iterations.  It is an amazingly effective start to an electrifying outing on one chorus.  As would be the norm, the exhilaration moves up a notch at the bridge.  This was but the first of many more treasures to come in the next couple of years.

There are many skeptics of the tablature applied to the transcriptions on this site.  I would suggest to them to set aside their conventional chord-pattern improvising method that came out of the book and at least try this, Charles’ initial solo.  The actual fingering that I advocate is not as difficult for an experienced guitarist as it may seem at first – the most difficult part is getting rid of ingrained habits.  A few minutes of concentrated effort will reward with an enlightened understanding and a truly joyous discovery of a new way of finally being able to phrase a solo as Charlie Christian did.  Can’t be done any other way – to sound like Charles, you have to stroke the guitar like Charles.
It works well even if one has to take it at a tad less than full tempo.