John Coltrane
Giant Steps

THE REVIEW

It was released exactly fifty years ago.

A few decades later, a musically insignificant but very precocious teenager, me, wandered around the dance halls of the North West with his alto saxophone. A golden Grassi. Rico reeds no. 3.

The sax because it was one of the "voices" of Lucio Dalla. And because one of the very first records I bought was a beautiful Charlie Parker 33.

Then everything changed, and changed forever.

On the recommendation of the usual older and more educated friend, one fine day the young beanpole, pimpled and awkward, approached this album with a cover famous even to those who knew very little about jazz at the time.

This photo of a stern and serious black man, photographed from below while playing his tenor, intensely focused.

After unwrapping it (how wonderful it was to unwrap a 33 record?) and putting it on the player (how wonderful it was to place a vinyl on the player, make it spin, blow on it to remove the dust, and lay the needle down?), the flood began, the wave, the eternal and highly technical flow of Trane's notes.

And a world opened up. An incredible world, never lived nor heard before.

An identical flow of emotions. Very strong. Uncontrollable.

For the first time, I encountered a genius with whom it was (and perhaps still is, for anyone) impossible to compete.

Even today, having given up the sax years ago and with a truly phenomenal saxophonist in the band, when we brush the "Trane discussion," a liturgical celebration atmosphere descends, a sense of the sacred. As if saying "watchwhatyousay" or "letuspraytogether."

Back then, they were just uncontrollable sensations, but over time it became a true and proper study.

Over time, you begin to understand everything behind an album like this. You understand the study, the experimentation, the hours and hours John spent at home studying, trying and trying again, thinking, composing, conceiving.

Because Trane, for those who didn't know, was the opposite of Bird. Where Charlie was all instinct and irresistible talent, John was methodical study and culture (obviously combined with one of the greatest musical sensibilities of all time). Where Charlie pledged his alto and played with the first "horn" that came to hand, Trane would never have changed his sax, reed, or mouthpiece for anything in the world.

Here, in "Giant Steps," a symbolic title, the leap is made. The real giant step is taken. Trane finds his own language, the perfection of his own sound and phrasing.

The group, forced into marathons of incredibly fast and at times unsustainable rhythms, sees on the piano, in its original version, the excellent Wynton Kelly and Tommy Flanagan, while receiving contributions from the equally excellent Cedar Walton in the alternative takes not initially released in the original album.

Pure but well-studied improvisation, a dense flow of never clichéd or trivial notes. Never cloying. Simply perfect.

Above all, seen in hindsight, fifty years after its publication, a true school from which no subsequent jazz saxophonist, in one way or another, could or knew how to disregard.

Amidst this flood of notes, "Naima" stands out, the perfect ballad, completely "written," devoid of improvisation (at least in the studio version on the album), dedicated to his first wife.

A masterpiece within the masterpiece.