There’s a certain innate bravado that comes along with being a jazz player, and naming your album Giant Steps certainly isn’t for the faint of heart unless you’re cocksure you’re damn well gonna deliver. It’s with that sense of swagger jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane entered Atlantic Studios in New York City with during the spring of 1959, and once the final product was delivered to the public in the winter of 1960, Coltrane emerged on top of the world as the King of Jazz. Expanding upon Thelonious Monk’s “sheets of sounds” concept, which effectively describes densely layered notes played in rapid succession as high speed arpeggios, as well as taking the common ii-V-I progression which dominated jazz and substituting multi-tonic chords to replace them (a technique that fittingly became known as “Coltrane Changes”), Coltrane created a masterpiece that lives on to this day as one of the greatest jazz records ever put to tape. It’s an absolute masterclass in harmonization that managed to take me by surprise each time I listen to the album, a cacophony of stimulus and a cool autumn breeze all in the same breath.
Giant Steps is required listening for anyone with even a negligible interest in the history of modern music. It simply is that good.
Standout Songs: “Giant Steps”, “Cousin Mary”, “Spiral”, “Mr. P.C.”
