Giant Steps kriegte auf jeden Fall ***** von Ralph Gleason (Downbeat vom 31.3.1960)
There seems to exist some feeling that John Coltrane, while granting him his importance as a major tenor influence, is a harsh-sounding player to whom it is difficult to listen. This LP, if it does nothing else, should dispel that idea quickly. There are times here when Coltrane is remarkably soft, lyrical and just plain pretty. For instance on Naima, which is an original as are all the tunes in the LP, JC starts out calling the title almost on his horn (it’s his wife’s name, by the way) in a hauntingly beautiful passage. Then again at the end of the same tune, JC cries wistfully and poignantly on the horn. In Syeeda’s Song Flute there’s a throw-away phrase just before Tommy Flanagan’s piano solo that is exquisite in its beauty. Of course the usual Coltrane forceful playing is present all over the album. The title song (which has echoes of Tune Up) is an example of this and so is Countdown which has a particularly intriguing tenor and drum duet in the front of the tune, as well as a great, soaring ending. Paul Chambers works particularly well with Coltrane and on the final track there is some hard digging by PC which is the kind of thing you put the arm back to over and over. It is no wonder that JC is making such an impression on tenor players. He has managed to combine all the swing of Pres with the virility of Hawkins and added to it a highly individual, personal sound as well as a complex and logical, and therefore fascinating, mind. You can tag this LP as one of the important ones.
und My Favorite Things kriegte auch *****, am 22. Juni 1961 von Pete Welding, der sich scheinbr an kein word limit halten musste…
This collection is nothing short of magnificent. These four assured and powerful tracks are the statements of a mature(and major) stylist who has evolved a cogent and gripping approach of real individuality.There are no loose ends here;all the disparate elements of his style have fallen into place for Coltrane, and a synthesishas been effected.
It’s been a long road for Coltrane. Ever since he left the Miles Davis Quintet in August, 1959, he has been subjecting himself to a rigorous artistic discipline in an attempt to bring all the wayward elements of his style under complete control. The restless, tortured convolutions of his early work and the resultant harsh brusqueness have here given way to a sure technical mastery, a sweeping grace, and an expressive lyricism in which there is no diminution of the power and urgency one always felt in his playing (just listen to Summertime). No, here he is completely in control all the time, and, for the first time, one senses that Coltrane is able to shape the direction of each piece in its entirety. Quite often in the past Coltrane seemed not always to be complete master of his improvisations; frequently they seemed to get away from him. Not so here, however, for each of the four pieces has a rightness and inevitability about it that comes of steady sure guidance and a purposeful knowledge of where one wants to go.
There are two major pieces here, one on each of Coltrane’s instruments, tenor and soprano. The first of these — the title piece, played on the smaller horn—is set to a delightfully “sprung” waltz rhythm effortlessly generated by Jones, whose drumming throughout is both sensitive and propulsive. Coltrane sets the mood and character of the piece in his initial solo, which consists primarily of a straightforward exposition of the theme, with little embellishment. A definite Middle Eastern flavor is established through his sensitive use of slight arabesques and shrill cries. This is picked up and amplified in his second solo, which is developed through a series of long lines that can be described only as sinuous and serpentine. At times there is employment of a pinched, high-pitched, near-human cry of anguish that is most effective, and at one point near the end of this surging, extended improvisation, he uses a device that sent chills along my spine: he seems to be playing a slithering, coruscating melody line over a constant drone note! Pianist Tyner’s spare, percussive solo separates the two horn segments. He seems to see the futility of trying to compete with Coltrane on any sort of linear basis and contributes an almost entirely chordal solo that sustains the mood of the piece beautifully.
The second soprano number, Everytime, is pretty much a standard ballad interpretation — lush, direct, and greatly romantic. It’s played fairly straight, with little improvisational development, the intense emotionality of the number being generated by the great feeling with which it is executed. Coltrane has been playing soprano for slightly more than a year now and has mastered it. He gets a dry, airy (almost hard) tone on it, which is at the opposite pole from that of the late Sidney Bechet’s warm, glutinous, sensuousness on the same instrument. One is tempted to say that Coltrane is already the second significant innovator on this instrument and let it go at that.
The second major number in the album is Summertime, which is a brilliant tour de force on tenor. As on My Favorite Things, Coltrane has two solo segments, broken by Tyner’s discreet piano. Both of Coltrane’s lengthy extemporizations on this piece are brooding, blistering examples of the rapid, multinote approach that has been labeled his sheets-of-sound technique. In fact, the use of this device is so sustained that each of the two solo segments might be considered a solid sheet of sound, for each consists oi a relentless, powerful cascade of notes delivered with such amazing speed and force that an astonishing harmonic density results. It’s quite unlike any previous usage he’s made of his technique.
But Not for Me is developed along these same lines, but to a lesser degree, and the use of the device is neither so extensive nor so sustained. Coltrane’s previous albums have emphasized various aspects of the style that is fully and finally crystallized in this impassioned, fully realized collection. If these four numbers are his “favorite things,” it’s easy to see why.
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