CounterintuitiveBody | 18 points | Jan 08 2018 17:26:47

Hailed by The Penguin Guide to Jazz as "Trane's first genuinely iconic record," Giant Steps deserves to be in any music lover's collection. All songs here were written by Coltrane and several went on to be jazz standards. The song "Giant Steps" itself is a monster, with some of the most complex and speedy chord changes in all of jazz - this actually went on to be known as "Coltrane Changes," even though Trane himself moved on from this style in a relatively quick time. His saxophone lines come across in a blur during several songs, in a style that was described as "sheets of sound." While his playing on this album is seemingly all over the map, it does still remain firmly rooted in the song structures and lacks the atonality and dissonance that Coltrane would explore during the last few years of his life.

Giant Steps is in a completely different style from another all-time classic jazz album recorded during the same month, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (which also features Coltrane and many of the same musicians featured here). While Kind of Blue has a nocturnal, laid-back vibe and keeps to a slow pace, Giant Steps is sprawling and frenetic with a variety of moods. The variety serves as a strong point for the album, and even a listener who knows nothing of chord changes or theory will find a lot to love in these seven songs.

Note: This edition is sourced from the Japanese 24bit Remaster, but it has been encoded in 16bit audio format at 44.1khz. There should be very little (if any) difference in sound quality to the average listener. Thank you /u/Doip for pointing out the correct bit depth.

Includes eight bonus tracks (the same bonus tracks as the 1998 Rhino reissue - all alternate takes of the album cuts).

Tracklist:

• 1. Giant Steps
• 1. Cousin Mary
• 1. Countdown
• 1. Spiral
• 1. Syeeda's Song Flute
• 1. Naima
• 1. Mr. P.C.
• 1. Giant Steps (alternate version 1)
• 1. Naima (alternate version 1)
• 1. Cousin Mary (alternate take)
• 1. Countdown (alternate take)
• 1. Syeeda's Song Flute (alternate take)
• 1. Giant Steps (alternate version 2)
• 1. Naima (alternate version 2)
• 1. Giant Steps (alternate take)

M (base64): aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56LyNGIUpyWkRqSWlMIVJPSEJ1UGJHaURwRlFPUEpOeEZ1eEE=

Enjoy, and as always PLAY IT LOUD!

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