John Coltrane - Giant Steps

The compositions divide into three categories: the harmonic studies, the ballad, and the hard bop workouts. Giant Steps and Countdown are the studies, pieces built around the third-related chord movement that became known as Coltrane changes. The title track is a sixteen-bar form that cycles through B, G, and E-flat major, each key center established by a ii-V-I. Countdown is even more compressed, a twenty-bar contrafact on Eddie Vinson's Tune Up that substitutes Coltrane changes for the original's simpler ii-Vs.

Both tracks are fast tempos with minimal thematic material; the point is the chord progression, and Coltrane solos through it with an authority that makes the difficulty audible. Tommy Flanagan, one of the best pianists in New York in 1959, sounds lost. His comping is tentative, his solo on Giant Steps choppy and searching, because the changes move faster than his ears can process. That struggle is part of the record's argument: Coltrane had written something that the tradition's existing vocabulary could not yet handle.

Naima is the album's ballad and its most durable composition, a thirty-two-bar form with a static harmonic foundation that allows Coltrane to build long, singing lines over a single chord. The melody is simple, almost hymn-like, and Coltrane's improvisation stays close to it, adding small variations and extensions rather than sheets-of-sound density. The track was recorded separately in December with Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb, the rhythm section from the Miles Davis Quintet, and the later session gave Coltrane a more sympathetic backing. Kelly's comping is richer and more responsive than Flanagan's on the earlier dates, and the looser tempo lets the piece breathe.

Naima became a jazz standard, covered more often than anything else on the album except the title track, and it pointed toward the lyrical side of Coltrane's writing that would develop more fully on later albums.

The hard bop tracks — Cousin Mary, Spiral, Syeeda's Song Flute, and Mr. P.C. — are well-constructed blues and rhythm changes variations, but they do not break new ground. Cousin Mary is a twelve-bar blues with a catchy, pentatonic head; Mr. P.C. is a faster blues that gives Coltrane room to stretch. Both are solid vehicles for improvisation, played with energy and swing, but they could have been written by any number of competent hard bop composers in 1959.

Spiral is the weakest piece on the album, a thirty-two-bar form with a wandering melody and a harmonic scheme that does not commit to either the Coltrane-change complexity or the directness of the blues. The track drags at nearly six minutes, and neither Coltrane's nor Flanagan's solos generate much forward motion. Syeeda's Song Flute, named for Coltrane's stepdaughter, is more successful, a bright, uptempo theme with a flute-like quality in the melody, but it is still a functional hard bop tune, not a compositional statement. The album's strength is not consistency; it is the presence of two or three pieces that changed what jazz harmony could do, surrounded by competent but less ambitious material.

The engineering is clean but unadorned. Tom Dowd and Phil Iehle recorded the quartet with good separation between instruments, each player occupying a clear position in the stereo field. Coltrane's tenor has presence and body, the midrange full without excessive brightness, and the rhythm section sits back just enough to give the solos room. But the room sound is dry, with little natural reverb or sense of acoustic space, which gives the album a slightly clinical quality.

The precision serves the harmonic studies, where clarity matters more than warmth, but it leaves the ballad and blues tracks feeling a bit austere. The production does not get in the way, but it does not add atmosphere either.

The original 1960 release was seven tracks, sequenced to open with the harmonic challenges and close with the most accessible material. The opening statement is the piece that announces the album's thesis in the first four bars. A blues and another harmonic study follow, creating a pattern of contrast. The fourth track sags, a slower piece that does not earn its length, and then the energy picks back up.

The flip side of the LP opened with the ballad that provides the album's emotional center, and closed with the fastest and most straightforward blowing tune. The sequencing is deliberate: hard to easy, complex to direct, with the ballad placed at the start of side two where it could reset the mood.

The five alternate takes added in later reissues do not improve the album; they document the process without adding new information. The March 1959 sessions with Cedar Walton and Lex Humphries produced alternate versions that Coltrane rejected, and the performances make clear why. Walton's comping is even less secure than Flanagan's, and the rhythm section does not lock in. The alternate takes from the May sessions are cleaner, but they repeat the same solos and arrangements without meaningful variation.

Completists will want them; most listeners will not need to hear Coltrane work through the same material twice in a row. The reissue padding stretches the album to over an hour, and the pacing that worked across seven tracks collapses under the added weight.

Giant Steps ranks second in Coltrane's catalog, behind only A Love Supreme, and the gap between them is significant. A Love Supreme is a unified spiritual statement, four movements that build to a single climax; Giant Steps is a collection of studies and sketches, brilliant in places but uneven. The harmonic writing on the title track and Countdown influenced every saxophonist who came after, from Michael Brecker to Chris Potter to contemporary players still using the changes as a practice template. The chord progression became a standard, a piece that advanced jazz students learn to navigate as proof they can handle modern harmony. Naima entered the repertoire as one of the great jazz ballads, recorded hundreds of times by pianists, guitarists and horn players. Those three tracks alone justify the album's reputation.

But the rest of the material does not reach that level. The hard bop tunes are functional, the alternate takes are inessential, and the production is competent but not distinguished. The album works best as a document of a specific moment: Coltrane in 1959, leaving the Miles Davis Quintet, figuring out what his own music would sound like, and solving harmonic problems that no one had thought to ask. It is essential for understanding where modern jazz improvisation came from, less essential as a front-to-back listen. Players will study it; casual listeners will find A Love Supreme more rewarding.

Start with the title track to hear the thesis, then Naima to hear the other side of Coltrane's writing. If those two work, add Countdown and Mr. P.C. Skip the alternate takes unless you are interested in the workshop process. For the next step, hear A Love Supreme to understand where this harmonic thinking led when Coltrane applied it to a unified concept, or go back to Coltrane's work on Kind of Blue to hear him in a modal context, playing over fewer changes instead of more. Giant Steps is a landmark, but it is not a finished statement. It is the sound of a saxophonist who had learned everything the tradition could teach him and was starting to write his own textbook.