The 500 - #103 - Giant Steps - John Coltrane

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album: #103

Album Title: Giant Steps

Artist: John Coltrane

Genre: Jazz, Post Bop, Hard Bop

Recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York City, New York

Released: February, 1960

My age at release: Not born

How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #232, dropping 128 spots

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Giant Steps

In the late ’80s, I started buying jazz CDs. This was not because I understood jazz but because I thought I should. It sounded like the kind of music that I wanted my persona to project; urbane, intelligent, sophisticated and tasteful. I think I also wanted to prod myself into believing that I was actually growing up despite working part-time jobs at restaurants, arenas and pools while still mucking about after my first degree, not entirely convinced adulthood had arrived.

Me in the late 80s, making a pizza at my restaurant gig,
wearing my lifeguard hoodie from my summer job with
the Public Utilities Commission.

Much like people who buy Tolstoy’s War and Peace or Joyce’s Ulysses from The Folio Society, these touchstones of cultural refinement were meant to be displayed, even if not fully understood or, in some cases, even absorbed. (Full disclosure: I also went through a Folio Society phase a few years later. To my credit, I chose books I wanted to read, or had already read. Certainly not Ulysses, which remains miles beyond my comprehension).

The Folio Society is known for its handsome, prestige editions of classic books.

I have written before about my first jazz purchase being Kind of Blue (#12 on The 500 List). Before Google searches and Ai prompts came along to help people 'cosplay' as music intellectuals, I learned about the legendary 1959 Miles Davis record through word of mouth. Someone, likely older and authoritative, had claimed it would be their “deserted island record.”

For those unfamiliar with the term “deserted island record” (sometimes expanded to a short list of records reminiscent of BBC’s celebrity Desert Island Discs radio program) selecting your favourites is a fun way of fantasizing life as a desert island castaway. What albums would you choose to keep you company, provided, of course, there was a power source?

Giant Steps, John Coltrane's fourth studio release and first for Atlantic Records was recorded shortly after he finished working with Miles Davis on Kind of Blue. Coltrane’s record is regarded as one of the most influential jazz albums of all time. Despite sounding chaotic to the untrained ear, his chord progressions are highly structured and mathematical. This was groundbreaking for several reasons, especially because:

• It introduced what musicians now call Coltrane Changes, a harmonic system that cycles through three distant key centers (B, G, and E♭ major), each a major third apart. This was unusual because most jazz harmony at the time moved more predictably through closely related keys.
• It demanded much of the musicians playing because of the rapid harmonic movement. The chords change quickly, sometimes every two beats. For improvisers, this meant having to constantly “re-map” the tonal center in real time, a mentally and physically demanding task for even an expert player.
• To navigate these changes, Coltrane developed his Sheets Of Sound style, a continuous cascade of notes pouring out of his saxophone like a waterfall or rushing current. Even though it sounds wild, he hits the important notes of each ever changing chord as they pass by.

Whereas Kind of Blue became the most accessible and best selling jazz record of all time (five million copies in the U.S. alone), Giant Steps became a rite of passage for serious jazz musicians and fans. The title track alone has become something of a legend. Among expert saxophonists, it is more a test than a song. Its rapid sequence of shifting keys, cycling through distant tonal centres, creates what is often described as a harmonic obstacle course. There are 26 chord changes packed into 16 bars, often played at a blistering tempo which, by most accounts, makes it one of the most difficult pieces in the jazz repertoire. However, despite the chaos, it remains an engaging and enjoyable listen.

The first section of Giant Steps charted for alto saxophone.

I suppose, going back to my earlier example: If Giant Steps is James Joyce’s impenetrable Ulysses, then Kind of Blue would be F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The first is a dense and demanding novel that requires effort, patience, and a certain level of fluency before it begins to reveal itself. It can feel forbidding at first, as though designed to test your intelligence.

The other, by contrast, is beautifully controlled and deceptively simple. Kind of Blue, like The Great Gatsby, feels accessible from the very beginning. You can enter it without preparation. In fact, it is still on many high school reading lists. But that ease is misleading. Between the pages there is a quiet sophistication, a structure and intention that only becomes clear the more time spend with it. Not coincidentally, it is widely owned and widely loved. People return to Gatsby, recommend it, and, in many cases, claim to know its subtleties before they fully understand the underlying themes. Which describes me perfectly when I purchased Kind of Blue and read Gatsby back in the '80s. I am still discovering things about both.

Granted, Giant Steps would make a terrific deserted island record. To steal a phrase from poet Walt Whitman,  the music "contains multitudes" of themes. You could spend years finding new pathways through its harmonic maze, fresh interpretations of how the pieces fit together. The challenge for the listener is to stretch  the mind; there is always more to learn. It would also have looked pretty impressive on my shelf when I was 23, alongside  a Folio Society copy of Ulysses.