John Coltrane - Giant Steps

Released in January 1960, John Coltrane's first album devoted entirely to his own compositions confirmed his towering command of tenor saxophone and his emerging power as a composer. Apprenticeships with Dizzy, Miles, and Monk had helped focus his furious, expansive solos, and his stamina and underlying sense of harmonic adventure brought Coltrane, at 33, to a new cusp--the polytonal "sheets of sound" that distinguished his marathon solos were offset by interludes of subtle, concise lyricism, embodied here in the tender "Naima." That classic ballad is a calm refuge from the ecstatic, high-speed runs that spark the set's up-tempo climaxes, which begin with the opening title song, itself a cornerstone of modern jazz composition. This exemplary reissue benefits from eight alternate takes of the original album's seven stellar tracks, excellent remastering of the original tapes, and an expanded annotation. --Sam Sutherland Amazon.com essential recording

A Legendary Album

When I started listening to jazz about 15 years ago, Giant Steps was one of the first albums that I really got into.

I was 18 years old, a freshman in college, and I didn't know anything about chords, scales, modes, time signatures etc. All I knew was that from the first time I heard Coltrane I knew that this was the greatest soloist that I had ever heard on any instrument.

The amazing thing on this album is that even with the amount of notes that he plays, Coltrane always maintains the melody of the song. I couldn't disagree more with the people that say this album is not very musical or very listenable. His solos are all based on the blues and all are melodic and are as a result very accessible even with the speed at which he is running through the notes.

This album is filled with memorable songs. "Syeeda's Song Flute" and "Spiral" are two standouts featuring two of Coltrane's most beautiful melodies , excellent solos and stellar work on the bass by Paul Chambers.

Paul Chambers was one of the best bassists of all time but never seems to be remembered anymore. "Mr. PC" is a fine showcase of his skills.

My favorite song is the ballad, "Naima". This one has gone down as ne of the great Jazz standards of its era and for good reason. It is a beautiful, sublime composition which proved once and for all that Coltrane was alot more than just a technical marvel,he had real soul and emotion to go with his physical skills.

If you are new to Jazz this should definately be one of the first albums you pick up. September 20, 2008

One giant step for Coltrane, but...

...from a purely musical standpoint, as in being actual compositions, it's not that great of a listen. Giant Steps, for the most part, is an album for people who understand music, those who know about music theory and understand what new breakthroughs this guy made with this album, and how he uses the numerous things. And for those people, they would probably know if Coltrane's Giant Steps is worth listening to for the musical technique and the like involved

But for me, Giant Steps shows some hints of brilliance, and John Coltrane still can play the heck out of his saxophone, he's brilliant obviously, on the whole. But the problem is that for all of the brilliant hints (the melodies he usually plays at the beginning and end of the songs are worth hearing), it suffers from nonstop, breathless, noodling. I would even say that John Coltrane sounds more like he's showing off instead of trying to play something memorable, akin to the arrogant showboating licks, the reason why many technical death metal bands are insulted (mostly on the showboat front). I can't deny the skill it takes to play like this, but John Coltrane gets annoying quick with his mastur______ noodling skronks of boring blasts of saxophones.

Maybe this is for my complete lack of understanding of music theory, but it simply isn't varied enough. It isn't bad, it has interesting parts, it just doesn't have enough to do it justice. If you are interested in the technical aspects, I have no problem with that, but there isn't much use for it when you have more focused, and ultimately more memorable Coltrane albums like Blue Train, My Favorite Things, and A Love Supreme.

5/10 June 26, 2008

Giant Steps

John Coltrane-Giant Steps *****

While I am rather new to Coltrane myself, only recently discovering him within the last year or so, I have acquired numerous albums of his, on top of the work he did with Miles Davis (all of which I own) I have to say that this is by far his most important album. While not as spiritual and uplifting, and maybe not even as moving as A Love Supreme, but still deeply influential, and maybe more so in fact. Giant Steps is a musicians album in true from, with emphasis on harmony's rather than on song/structure on his more early work, or on soloing and freedom in his later work.

As the title track, 'Giant Steps' opens the album you can tell your in for something special and something unique among the mans masterful body of work, and as that track comes to a close with his long sustained notes you feel satisfied, and this continues throughout the album. 'Countdown' was a sign of things to come, and 'Spiral' was absolutely breathtaking. Coltrane's reading of 'Mr. P.C.' well astonishing to say the least, it is a marvelous way to close such a land mark album.

While A Love Supreme may be the quintessential album of all time, and Ascension might be the most original, Giant Steps is by far my favorite Coltrane record, and easily the one that gets the most spins. June 11, 2008

A must for all music lovers

There is nothing that I can or need to say to add to whatever has already been said about this masterpiece of an album. This is one of the first Jazz CDs that I bought and I am really glad for that fact. April 13, 2008

don't buy this reissue for the sound

The music has been with me for 3 or 4 decades; originally on lp and then CD reissues. This particular reissue is vastly inferior in terms of sound quality compared to an earlier CD reissue I have (the one with only 5 bonus selections added to the original release). Here, the piano sounds like it's played through a cheap amp, the sax is edgy but not clearer, the bass is loud but shapeless. Obviously classic music in a nice package but if you are at all sensitive about how music sounds, this particular reissue is one to avoid. This is the first review i've
written for Amazon, so i feel strongly abut this.
March 27, 2008

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