giant steps
I’ve been geeking out on Coltrane a little bit this week… particularly “Giant Steps.” This post is basically a linkdump of any Coltrane site/video I may ever want to look at again, but hopefully someone else may like these.
If you’re passing through quickly and only have time to follow one of these links, I’d recommend this video which shows the sheet music for Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” solo passing by as he plays:
The motherfucker could play, huh?
The chord changes for “Giant Steps” are notoriously difficult to play, and nearly impossible to improvise over (notice the piano solo in “Giant Steps”; Tommy Flanagan, normally amazing, kind of stumbles through it as a result of not having played the song prior to the recording session). There’s a wikipedia article on Coltrane’s approach to harmony (warning: music theory wankery), and a lovely visualization of the chord progression can be found here.
I did a Metafilter post a while back about a second grade class in Queens, NY falling in love with Coltrane’s music, and raising money to restore the nearby house where he wrote A Love Supreme. I’m lazy and suffering from tendonitis so I’m not too keen on relinking all of the stuff I put in that post, but you’ll find links to news articles about the class project as well as a Youtube-ized A Love Supreme if you head over to MeFi.
Here’s “Giant Steps” as played by a robot… it’s both awesome and depressing.
And finally, an oldie-but goodie: an animation of “Giant Steps” that just might blow your mind.