John Coltrane - Giant Steps (Dlx)
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Artist: John ColtraneBrand: COLTRANE,JOHN
Edition: Music CD
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1998-03-03
Music Label: Atlantic
Soundtracks:
- Giant Steps
- Cousin Mary
- Countdown
- Spiral
- Syeeda's Song Flute
- Naima
- Mr. P.C.
- Giant Steps (Alternate Version 1)
- Naima (Alternate Version 1)
- Cousin Mary (Alternate Take)
- Countdown (Alternate Take)
- Syeeda's Song Flute (Alternate Take)
- Giant Steps (Alternate Version 2)
- Naima (Alternate Version 2)
- Giant Steps (Alternate Take)
Music reviews of Giant Steps (Dlx)
Music Review: Bebop to the N-th Degree
Rating: 5 Stars
Giant Steps was recorded right around the time as another classic featuring Coltrane's playing, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. The two albums couldn't be different - one is mellow, laid-back, introverted, and the other is exuberant and explosive.
Up until this point Coltrane had recorded quite a few albums under his name, but Giant Steps was only the second (after Blue Train) to focus primarily on his own compositions. Unlike Blue Train, which was recorded almost two years earlier and fit comfortably in the then-mainstream hard bop style, Giant Steps saw Coltrane taking elements of bebop and pushing them as far as they could go. So you get plenty of dense, chord-oriented improvisation at fast tempos.
That aspect of the music probably makes this album appealing to musicians, but the album's catchy melodies and more generally Coltrane's gift for focused improvisation reaches out to plenty of casual fans. It's one of his most popular albums. There are of course the aforementioned "studies" of difficult chord progressions at fast tempos - "Giant Steps" and "Countdown" (which opens with a fiery saxophone-drums duet). There are also several mellower explorations - the blues "Cousin Mary" and the almost Monkish "Syeeda's Song Flute". And "Naima", recorded about half a year after the other tunes, is one of Coltrane's most beautiful ballads - it's such a lovely melody that Coltrane refrains from improvising, playing it pretty straight, bracketing an exquisite meditation by pianist Wynton Kelly. He'd play "Naima" for the rest of his career - in 1961 with Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet, in the mid-60s with his classic quartet, and in 1966 with Pharoah Sanders. Another tune from this album that he would revisit is the blistering closer, "Mr. P.C." - this version is relatively short, but sometimes it would stretch to over half an hour in concert.
It seems like the alternate takes get a mixed review here. I don't listen to them as much as I do to the original album, but they're interesting to have and shed light on Coltrane's thinking as a musician. Some of them predate the actual Giant Steps album by 2 months and are effectively a dry run.
The sound, as with many Atlantic recordings from the 50s and early 60s, is not that great; compare it to the richness and warmth of Coltrane's Prestige, Blue Note and Impulse! Recordings.
To wrap up: a few of the other reviews compare this album to Sonny Rollins's Saxophone Colossus - recorded almost three years earlier, also with a quartet, also featuring pianist Tommy Flanagan, and also making a reference to "bigness" in the title. I think those comparisons are spot on - each album represents a major milestone in the development of modern tenor saxophone playing. Though some of Coltrane's other Atlantic albums are probably better, this one is essential listening.
Description of Giant Steps (Dlx)
In 1960, the hugely innovative Coltrane was taking some giant steps of his own - this was the first recording of an entirely Trane-penned set and it achieved the stunning emotional intensity for which his live work was renowned. Warner Jazz. 2005.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
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