Giant Steps - John Coltrane

It's Sunday, so why not Jazz again? Let's try and get a streak going. Today we'll be talking about Giant Steps by the legend John Coltrane. Legendary Sax player. He has a lot of great songs, but I like Giant Steps for a bunch of reasons. It always reminds me an anecdote a friend of mine used to say, which I'm kind of hoping is true: on a saxophone you're limited to only playing one note, but John Coltrane said: screw that. If you just play the notes fast enough, it sounds like you're playing chords right? So that's just what he's doing on this song. He's playing notes in clusters that resemble chords. It sounds amazing to me.

There's a darker side to this record though. While writing Giant Steps, Coltrane was addicted to alcohol and heroin, and you can kind of hear it on the record. The hasty rhythm, the incoherent phrases in the sax solo sometimes.

Yet Coltrane remains a legend to me. Not a song like last week to enjoy with a glass of whiskey and a cigar, this one is a foot stomper. Enjoy it nonetheless!