Giant Steps (album)

Giant Steps is an album of John Coltrane published in January 1960. Giant Steps was recorded little of time after the Kind off Blue of Miles Davis. In the space of a few weeks, John Coltrane was going thus to twice mark of its print the history of the Jazz, but with radically opposite albums. If Kind off Blue opens carry them modal Jazz (and the improviser of the grid of agreements releases), Giant Steps kills the Be bop while carrying it to a degree of complexity such as only a virtuoso as Coltrane could then conceive (and to interpret!) titles like Giant Steps or Countdown . Giant Steps is the first album of Coltrane published as a leader for Atlantic. That has its importance because Nesuhi Ertegun gave to John means which it did not have at his sessions for Prestige: the group could be allowed to record several catches, which proved to be essential because of the complexity of part of the material. Giant Steps was then the most personal album of John. Not only it signed the seven compositions, but their titles were rather personal so that the cousin of John, Mary, can speak about album of family.

Lastly, if Giant Steps is not the most accomplished album of John, it does not remain about it less than the richness of its compositions will make school: few albums count as many titles become genuine standards ( Naima , Giant Steps , Cousin Mary , Countdown and Mr. PC ).

Giant Steps is a single album in the history of the jazz. On the one hand because Coltrane will not push the experiment further, undoubtedly feeling that the kind would find its limits quickly. In addition because, in spite of its defects, the album does not remain less attractive about it: Coltrane consequently has qualities of type-setter and interpreter out of the commun run.

Titles

All the titles are composed by John Coltrane

Face 1

Giant Steps - 4:44
Cousin Mary - 5:46
Countdown - 2:22
Spiral - 5:57

Face 2

Syeeda' S Song Flute - 7:01
Naima - 4:22
Mr. PC - 6:57

Alternative catches exits in 1974 (Atlantic)

Giant Steps - 3: 40
Naima - 4: 27
Cousin Mary - 5: 54
Countdown - 4: 33
Syeeda' S Song Flute - 7: 02

Musicians

April 1st, 1959 (Taken alternate of Giants Step and Naima ):

May 4th, 1959 ( Spiral Countdown & ) and May 5th, 1959 ( Giant Steps , Cousin Mary , Syeeda' S Song Flute & Mr. PC ):

Even personal for the catch alternatives of Countdown (May 4th, 1959), Cousin Mary , and Syeeda' S Song Flute (May 5th, 1959).

December 2nd, 1959 ( Naima ):

A step of giant

We were close, it lived just with the corner of my street. It came and played me that week or two before. I did not need any partition. I said: " Very well. No the concern with that! " I did not know that I would have to play on top and what a tempo it had at the head! Not that it is unplayable, but it was necessary to be more prepared that to play the blues or I do not know what of other|Tommy Flanagan in connection with Giant Steps |John Coltrane - His life, its music Lewis To carry

Excel pianist, Tommy Flanagan forever hidden which he would have preferred that the most famous session of its career is not that of Giant Steps . Indeed, only Coltrane had then truly jumped the steps of giant of what were going to become its famous Coltrane Changes , and it always does not seem to evolve/move in the same galaxy as its sidemen. The practice of the Thesaurus off Scales and Melodic Patterns of Nicolas Slonimsky inspired Coltrane in its search, proposing grid S of agreements on which to improvise, which, especially with this tempo there, can seem impossible. The modulation S are such as they require an exceptional level of concentration doubled of an irreproachable technique.

Here the grid of the 8 first measurement S:

I fear sometimes that what I do sound simply like academic exercises, and I endeavor to obtain something of increasingly more tempting|John Coltrane|notes of small pockets of the album

For as much, and as incredible as that can appear, the piece sinks neither in the study, nor in free virtuosity. It is precisely the flow hallucinating of the speech which makes the composition attractive, because truly inhabited… as long as it is Coltrane which is with the orders.

Cousin Mary returns to a more academic style. Coltrane extrapolates 12 measurements of the blues with an original grid of agreements, but whose feeling remains bluesy. The composition is dedicated to his/her cousin, to which it was very close at the time of its first years.

On Countdown , Coltrane pushes still further than it started with Giant Steps . Initially only in duet with Art Taylor (of which the play is undoubtedly too fixed), Tommy Flanagan returns only in the course of piece, being satisfied to place the agreements whereas Paul Chambers low launches out in a walking only at the end of the beach.

Flanagan will specify thereafter that Coltrane wanted at the beginning to integrate a last composition entitled Sweet Sioux , constituting the last part of a trilogy. Too much complexes, the recording of this one was not satisfactory. This one will disappear unfortunately thereafter in a fire, remaining forever new.

Spiral is a brilliant original composition, whose climates evolve/move according to the passages. The structure presents an alternation between a chromatic descent of agreements whereas the low one does not move with another more traditional passage in walking. This title returns justice to Tommy Flanagan whose improvisation is here of foreground. It is also the occasion of the first basic solo of Paul Chambers.

The second face opens on Syeeda' S Song Flute (of which the title returns to the daughter-in-law of John), a composition of which rhythmic swinging, almost hopping, is used for wonder an almost childish topic. There Coltrane shows still shining type-setter. The improvisation takes again a little the things where the preceding title had left them. However more slackened than on the first and third beaches, the play of John less dense, is not crossed of it of an energy of every moment. Tommy Flanagan and Paul Chambers benefit from the tempo slower of the composition to develop their respective solo.

Of all the topics written for Giant Steps , Naima is perhaps more moving by all. This composition, which carries the first name of the first woman of John, is without any doubt one of its more famous. And one of its most beautiful. It will continue to play this topic even when Alice integrates the group ( Live At The Village Vanguard Again! ). Coltrane, which finds on this title his/her colleagues of the group of Miles Davis, never falls into sentimentalism in its interpretation. Naima will be the subject of many recoveries in the years to come: archie Shepp will take again the composition on Four for Trane (1964), Pharoah Sanders on Crescent With Love then on New York Unit , McCoy Tyner on Plays John Coltrane , David Murray on Octet Plays Trane (where figure a version of Giant Steps ) or David Liebman on Joy . The album finishes with Mr. PC , a blues as a minor with the very fast tempo dedicated to Paul Chambers, bass player that Coltrane held in high regard. Coltrane plays here of the very fast sentences with a sound without Vibrato in a style Hard bop from which it will not cease moving away in the months to come. The improvisation of Coltrane is a model of the genre: it begins its solo on the hubcaps but succeeds in nevertheless never not making fall down the intensity. The solo of Flanagan, in a normal harmonic context, watch that this last could make fly on a high tempo. With the years, Mr. PC became a standard among the musicians of jazz.

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