Banger of an album. The story goes he Didn’t let pianist Tommy Flanagan reherse before recording and you can hear a few of the the moments he tries to keep up at the 148 bpm. Meanwhile Coltrane blast into a wild solo as soon as his part is up. Lol.
“The composition features a cyclic chord pattern that has come to be known as Coltrane changes. The composition has become a jazz standard, covered by many artists.[3][4] Due to its speed and rapid transition through the three keys of B major, G major and E♭ major,[5] Vox described the piece as “the most feared song in jazz” and “one of the most challenging chord progressions to improvise over” in the jazz repertoire.”
“with other compositions, Coltrane brought “Giant Steps” to the studio without rehearsal.[7] On the original recording, Flanagan played a choppy start-stop solo in which he appears to struggle to improvise over Coltrane changes without preparation.[7] Flanagan revisited “Giant Steps” on several recordings, including an album named after the song, which he dedicated to Coltrane.[8]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Steps_(composition)
Great video explaining this legend of an album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62tIvfP9A2w
Reminds me of a story John Faddis once told me about Coltrane. Supposedly after a show an audience member had transcribed Coltrane’s solos and was excited to show the music and ask about his inspirations, Coltrane takes one look at the sheets and goes ‘Nah man, I can’t play that,’ and walks away. The man goes to leave and the pianist runs up and says not to worry, John is usually too messed up to know where he’s at much less what he’s playing.
Take that with a grain of salt though, only thing I’ve known jazz musicians to be better at anyone else at other than improvisation is telling tall tales. Especially over drinks.
Imagine what the sheet music would look like for something out of Olatunji.
