John Coltrane's Tone Circle

A few months ago, I was studying Giant Steps and I came across the “Giant Steps is actually very simple (yes, really)” video by Dave Pollack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd75Mwo4JNo

Pollack argues that the main reason that Giant Steps is such a high mountain is because it is traditionally played at such a ferocious tempo. Slow it down, and the Coltrane Changes become fairly ordinary ii-V-I substitution progressions.

I’m persuaded. I love Coltrane, and I’ve listened to the Giant Steps album countless times. The Coltrane Changes are very nice, but in the line of other jazz theory such as tritone substitution, the deceptive cadence, and so on.

The main thing with Giant Steps is that to play it like Coltrane does you have to practice it to death, accumulate a vocabulary of riffs, and gain facility at improvising over sophisticated changes moving at a speed that other tunes won’t have prepared you for.

EDIT: I originally posted the wrong link, to Giant Steps slowed down 30%. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilbrDJy9-98

Absolutely. And Central Park West is a good example of the same concept but slowed down.

Not only does it cycle through a ton of keys, but wind instruments like the sax require unique fingerings and embouchure changes in each key. It’s not nearly as hard on a guitar.

“Quantity has a quality of its own.” — Karl Marx, or maybe Coltrane.

Ah yes the best welcome for people joining a jam session: "OK, let's do Giant Steps. One, one two three..."

Hehe, that had me laughing out loud and I haven't touched a sax in two decades :)

After both, but with a wider range:

“More is Different”

https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_differen...

Had me laughing, too, and I haven't touched a flute in two years :0)