Transcription Page:     Flying Home  —  2 October 1939

C&A:

This version of Flying Home was the very first of Charlie Christian’s studio recordings with the Goodman sextet.  It may not have been the very best of his solos but it is by far the best known version of this tune having been released on a Columbia 78-rpm exactly a month after it was recorded.  (The alternate take from this session was released a few years later, as Homeward Bound, but only on the V-Disc label for distribution exclusively to the soldiers overseas.)

Charles was well acquainted with this composition—he wrote it and had been playing it since his days with the Leslie Sheffield orchestra.  It begins with a four-bar piano intro, followed by the 32-bar theme (with a clarinet break) by the ensemble.  CC then comes in with his solo and it’s an excellent example of how to add variety to a simple harmony not only by the distinctive phrases but by the unique phrasing and by playing the E♭Maj in all kinds of fret positions.

On five of his seven early solos on this tune he starts out with riff repeated three or four times—not so here.  But what I find most unusual on this particular solo is his playing two-bar phrases on the A-sections. I can’t think of another solo where he does that.  His normal modus operandi is to cross or ignore the bar lines as he does on the bridge.

And an excellent B-section it is:  I like that leap from E♭, D, D♭ up to C at bar 18 before inserting the three-note D♭m between the E♭7 and A♭ measures.  In bar 19, he repeats the pattern from mm 17, transposed to A♭.  He anticipates the F7 by two beats with a six-note chromatic run which is unique—in fact, the entire run in mm 20-21 is not repeated in any of his solos.  There’s a ♯5 in the B♭7 (not unusual for CC but it is for that era) followed two beats later by a Maj7 which he emphasizes as more than a mere passing tone.

The vibes solo follows with Charles prominently heard with his E♭dim7 chord accents throughout the A-sections and riffs on the bridge.  The out-chorus has CC riffs on the As and comping on the bridge.

To save on web space for future transcriptions, I have elected not to include the theme, chord accents, and closing riffs here since they are readily available in recently published books and magazines.  However, those publications tabulate most of those choruses too high on the fretboard—the theme, for example, should be played between the third and eighth fret rather than around the twelfth.