Archives for May 5, 2009

Paul Paolicelli and I got to be friends hanging out at professional meetings when we were television news directors. We were both trumpet players and found more to talk about than the state of journalism, which in the 1970s and ’80s was already a little soft around the edges. Come to think of it, so was the jazz business.
Paul still runs a TV news operation, in North Carolina, and has a blog on his station’s web site. This morning he responded to the “Giant Steps” piece below by referring me to his latest entry, which begins:

A few years ago I told my (soon to be 13 year old) daughter that one of the few things I could truly give her was a working understanding of the difference between John Coltrane and Paul Desmond. That she probably had no idea of what I was talking about, but that one day in a distant future, when she would be able to glibly discuss jazz with a full memory of the sounds, and she’d smile and thank me wherever I might be by then.
Sometimes things happen sooner than later.
The other day my daughter and I were driving to Wilmington from Chapel Hill and listening to Anita O’Day (I have a car loaded with CDs and mp3s of the old jazz greats, just for this purpose)…

To find out what happened then, go here.
To find out more about Paolicelli, go here.

John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” is the harmonic steeplechase generally regarded as the most significant – at least the most prominent – milestone on the tenor saxophonist’s path out of bebop on his way to what he called a universal sound. Difficult as the fact may be to absorb for those still bowled over by the freshness and complexity of what Coltrane did with the piece, he made his stunning recording of “Giant Steps” 50 years ago today.
To put the lasting impact of his accomplishment in perspective, think of an influential jazz recording made 50 years before Coltrane laid down “Giant Steps” on May 5, 1959. You can’t. There was none, because jazz as a distinct form of music did not exist on May 5, 1909. “Giant Steps” is a monument to the evolution of the art of jazz in less than half a century, a phenomenon unprecedented in any other fundamental genre of music. Coltrane’s rhythm section was Tommy Flanagan, piano; Paul Chambers bass; Arthur Taylor, drums. It has sometimes been pointed out that in his solo Flanagan seems less than comfortable with the changes. If you are a musician, imagine how comfortable you would be negotiating that minefield of chords if the music were set before you for the first time at a record session.
I am not sure that the video clip below explains what about “Giant Steps” led to an opening up of the approach to jazz improvisation. Indeed, I am not sure that Coltrane’s artistry can be explained; the quotients of mystery and spirit in his music are as essential as his quantifiable elements of musicianship and saxophone technique. The clip certainly shows what his astonishing solo on the piece is made of. Thanks to longtime Rifftides reader Dick McGarvin for bringing this to our attention. Hold onto your seats and, as Dick says, follow the bouncing ball.

After you have played or sung along with Coltrane, you may wish to take a few moments to read some of the more than 1,500 comments from YouTube viewers about “Giant Steps.” They range from the simplistic but inarguable:

this is really coool ..

To those that will boggle the minds of laymen:

Look for the tonal centers. The starting B chord throws people off, it can be treated as a Bmin7, giving you 6 beats in G, 6 beats in Eb, 6 beats in G, 4 beats in Eb and 4 beats in B; then 8 beats in Eb, 8 beats in G, 8 beats in B, 8 beats in Eb. The last bar is a turnaround in B to bring you back to the initial chord- you can play the D# to D to emphasize the change in tonal center or play a B. Find the pivot tones that adjacent tonal centers have in common to play across the bar lines.

En masse, the comments emphasize the impression that Coltrane’s performance has made on jazz listeners and jazz players, most of whom were probably not born when he recorded it.
The album Giant Steps is a basic repertoire item, a necessity in any serious collection.
“Giant Steps” led the artist Michal Levy to create an inspired film animation based on an abbreviated version of Coltrane’s recording. Her work is in the spirit, but not the style, of the pioneering Canadian artist Norman McLaren. To see Levy’s piece, go here.