Giant Steps (One Step at a Time)

The January 2009 issue of Downbeat magazine has a nice introductory article on practicing John Coltrane's seminal tune Giant Steps. The piece is called Making the Connections and was written by saxophonist David Demsey.

Demsey's article got me thinking about approaches to studying Trane's famous chord sequence. These changes have become integral to modern jazz playing and are an essential ingredient to any serious study of improvisation. Please see the end of this post for a brief list of transcriptions and other material available to musicians who want to explore Giant Steps.

PlayJazzNow just released a set of playalong tracks that will help you work on this chord sequence. We call it TRANE TRAX, and it contains Giant Steps changes at three different tempos, plus the changes to Countdown, 26-2 and Trane's version of Body and Soul. There are no shortcuts to mastering Coltrane's harmonic language of this period. You just have to take it one step at a time.

Giant Steps Resources:

This Song Trellis post is a good place to start.

Here is Lucas Pickford's online transcription of Coltrane's solo.

A nice descriptive piece from JazzStandards.com placing Giant Steps in its historical context.

A sound clip and transcription of Tom Harrell's solo from JazzTrumpetSolos.com.

Michael Brecker and Bob Mintzer solo transcriptions from ibrecker.com.

Dan Adler's exhaustive "cycles" study of Giant Steps changes in 12 keys.

Jazz Etude Books

Evan Tate, tenor saxophonist and instructor, has published a couple of excellent jazz texts, both of which will benefit beginning and intermediate level jazz musicians. They also happen to be great resources to use with our tracks.

250 Jazz Patterns is available in print and digital editions. The exercises are very hip and musical, unlike some other pattern books out there. Here's a list of contents:

• Preliminary exercises
• Major Patterns
• Minor Patterns
• ii-V7-I Patterns
• iim7b5 - V7b9 - i Patterns
• Tritone Substitutions
• iv - bVII7 – I
• Turnarounds
• Pentatonic Scales
• "Bebop" Scales
• Blues Scales
• Symmetrical Scales & Patterns
• Jazz Solo Etudes on: Blues, "Rhythm" Changes,
Cherokee, Giant Steps and Lady Bird for Bb and Eb instruments
• 5 Solo Transcriptions

Tate's other excellent book is Blues and Rhythm Changes in All Keys. In this one he writes out a full two choruses of solo material in each key for two of the most used jazz progressions.