A Closer Look At John Coltrane's Giant Steps

Alden Hall is the building that hosts all music courses at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). The Main hall is enormous with distant ceilings, but all other rooms are very small in comparison. The stairs leading down from the concert hall into the basement twisted one full revolution counterclockwise or clockwise depending on which side you were on.

In the basement was a digital composition lab, two practice pianos and several classrooms were music courses were taught and where choirs would practice after hours.

In my junior year, returning to Alden for my first Jazz course rustled up memories of my previous music composition and digital composition courses. This class however would be much different.

Our professor, Rich Falco, was a Berklee alumni, who was a short man with a very bushy mustache. He always seemed to have a container of coffee nearby and after the first couple weeks of the course, I hadn't even seen him play an instrument.

Then one day, as he was trying to show his students how to solo over changing chords, he brought out his electric guitar and melted and chilled the room in an instant. It was my first time being that close to a virtuoso.

He looked up after his solo and the room was nearly in a coma. He smiled and started the next lesson. Apparently there are some who have approached soloing and composition in unique ways, and he begann talking about John Coltrane.

Coltrane was a gifted musician who had a couple major musical phases. One was heavily influenced by the fast flurry of Bebop, and the other, after kicking his heroin addiction, was highly spiritual and his gifted wife, Alice Coltrane, joined him on that part of his journey.

Falco brought our attention to a sheet of music which seemed surprisingly sparse.

It was a Coltrane piece that started out with a couple notes per measure. Seemed like no big deal. But then he played the recording.

The song breaks down like this.

Motif [0:00 - 0:25]

The folks who recorded during this 1959 session were:

• John Coltrane (sax)
• Tommy Flanagan (piano)
• Paul Chambers (double bass)
• Art Taylor (drums)

Coltrane plays at 320-340 beats per minute (bpm). The sheet music says 170, but I checked here and it is at least twice that speed, which is extremely fast for a song. Compare that to the speeds of these songs.

• Hotline Bling, Drake (67 bpm)
• Send My Love, Adele (164 bpm)
• Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours), Stevie Wonder (109 bpm)
• Same Side, Tatiana Moroz (68 bpm)
• Flim, Aphex Twin (148-149 bpm)
• Alberto Balsalm, Aphex Twin (95-96 bpm, just found this song...woah!)

I'm not saying faster is better, because I would probably stop listening to music if it suddenly became popular to write songs at 999 bpm.

This comparison is to give you an idea at how fast Coltrane was going. The song was moving so quickly that the melody just has a couple notes per measure. (James Bond jumping off a motorcycle onto a speeding train)

The chords he is playing here are the chords repeated in the solo, which the pianist - I feel so bad for his fingers - sometimes skips or artfully pauses before playing. When it comes time for the sparse yet elegant piano solo these chords are what you mind is expecting. Having to play those chords at 170bpm is quite the challenge.

This main motif he covers in the first 25 seconds is a small percentage of the song which is mostly made up of solos.

When you break down a song that you love dearly, you'll see that it is broken up in sections: Motif (8.9%), Coltrane's Solo (52.8%), Flanagan's Solo(17.4%), Coltrane's 2nd Solo(8.5%), 2nd Motif (8.9%) , Breakdown (3.5%).

Apparently this song was recorded on the first try without rehearsing.

Normally there would be an A, B, or C section, but this song is off the charts as far as compositions go. I just use motif to describe the notes played in the entire sheet music. During the solos Coltrane and Flanagan use the same chords, but do whatever they want in those sections (not really, but kind of).

This motif is simultaneously bridging the chords together and also bridging the entire song together. You could consider it the wooden fence to let you know when the song real estate starts and ends. This is going to be listened to many many times and remembered, so there has to be something you can hum when someone asks you what it sounds like.

Unlike parts of the solos, this motif is using notes that are in the chords already and simultaneously weaves together each chord.

As you see here, most of the melody can be found in the chords being played. This image is of the first 5 notes and chords. The G played with the Bb7 is the exception and creates a bit of tension when you play it in isolation, but it is a great way to get someone's attention or wake them up on a Monday morning.

Coltrane's Solo [0:25 - 2:54]

Very much like Michael Jordan, Coltrane leaps into the the solo and gloriously flies through half of the song. I use the word "fly" because the speed that he solos in a 320 bpm song is remarkable. At certain points he is playing four times as fast as the original tempo. Let's take a look at the first five chords against Coltrane's solo.

I had to listen to the beginning of his solo 10-15 times just to get the notes right.

First off, he starts his solo a measure early, but what is even more interesting is that his solo consists mostly of the notes in the chords he flashes through. He rearranges the notes in the chords and is playing the closest notes first. Another term for playing each note in a chord is called an arpeggio.

Arpeggios can be played ascending up the instrument or descending down and he flips between both.

He goes up the C#m7 chord and down in the following two chords. Up the D chord and down the next chord that follows. This undulation in the solo gives that rushing feeling of flight. Couple that with the tempo of the song and we are breaking Mach 1.

The opening notes of is solo also are a similar pattern to the opening tones sung by the Chordettes in Mr. Sandman.

As @anjoke mentioned in the comments, there is additional mastery when you look at the specific chords chosen for this piece.

Here are the chords in the scale of B in relation to the root chord:

B - Root
Dbm - II
Ebm - III
E - IV (subdominant, no strong push)
F - V (dominant, makes you want to hear the root chord)
Ab - VI
Bb - VII
B - Root

Coltrane goes from the root (B) to D7 which doesn't make sense until you look at the third chord (G). D7 is the 7th of the 5th chord of G and Coltrane uses it as a passing chord to get to Bb (another 7th of a 5th) which is the 5th of the in-key chord Eb. The progression is somewhat recursive.

This gets a bit confusing, but for a more detailed explanation check out this article or read @anjoke 's comment.

There are moments in the solo where he holds out one note, and they remind me of Superman flying through the clouds.

Flanagan 's Solo [2:55 - 3:44]

Flanagan comes in on the piano and plays at Coltrane's speed, but eventually dials it back with some rests to give a little breath to the song. Near the end he gives the song a classy elegance to complement the previous two minutes.

This is the same pianist that was featured as the theme for Eric Jackson's night time jazz program for WGBH called Eric In The Evening covering Horace Silver's song called Peace.

Coltrane's 2nd Solo [3:45 - 4:09]

Coltrane repeats the same style as his first solo.

Motif [4:10 - 4:35]

Here we return to that motif. The one that you'll remember and be satisfied with when you start the song over again.

Breakdown[4:36 - 4:46]

The breakdown is an important part of the song. Imagine going at Mach 1 then somehow managing to land in 10 seconds. Impossible, right? Nope!

Humphries does a snare roll and Coltrane ends -- using the Bb from the previous two measures -- with a new flurry of notes.

This pattern can be repeated by playing each note of the Eb chord with a minor modification. Add the note a half step before the chord note and follow that with a note a whole step after.

I am almost 100% sure he does this 4 times the speed of the song and plays 24 notes before ending on the Bb a couple octaves down. 😱

No offense to Art Tayor, but I didn't realize I left out the drums (and the bass!), but I will revisit those to parts when I get a chance.

• The first image source is allaboutjazz.com.