I had listened to jazz fair amount when I discovered Coltrane in my mid-teens. "Giant Steps" was the first album of his I listened to and it really opened my mind and my ears to what jazz was about. “Coltrane says of Giant Steps that it gets its name from the fact that ‘the bass line is a kind of loping one. It goes from minor thirds to fourths, kind of a lop-sided pattern in contrast to moving strictly in fourths or in half-steps.’ Tommy Flanagan’s relatively spare solo and the way it uses space as part of its structure is an effective contrast to Coltrane’s intensely crowded choruses.” --Nat Hentoff, original liner notes. Sure the technical stuff is interesting, but what moved, and still moves me is the sheer jumping, soaring joy of it. The man had a mighty spirit and a mighty heart. I think I have every album he ever made, and I love them all, from his early more traditional efforts to his soulful cosmic wailings suffused as they are with joy and pain and rage and love. P.
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