Branford told my mentor a few months ago that Coltrane never played Giant Steps live. I've scoured YouTube and can't find any live performances or recordings of live performances. Can anyone dispute this?
Did someone digitally alter this? Highly suspect. Listen and watch closely.depends of what " live performance" means.
this appears to be a TV take which of course in those years was unedited and often live in front of a studio audience.
But of course you hear the voice at the start which suggests that they made several takes.
Sounds like accordion music. loldepends of what " live performance" means.
this appears to be a TV take which of course in those years was unedited and often live in front of a studio audience.
But of course you hear the voice at the start which suggests that they made several takes.
Maybe not if the piano player wasn't up to it?I find it very hard to believe he never played it "live", by that I mean for an audience. Wouldn't he want to play it in clubs while he was promoting the album?
I wonder if Trane just wrote that tune as part of his on-going study process for that time period and by the time he had his first quartetThe more I understand the person John Coltrane, the more I see Giant Steps as a breaking of shackles. I've made the assertion that JC made Giant Steps to prove (mostly to himself) that he could play changes, all of them...to the extent of creating his own template. I find angst and tension with a boxed in feel whenever I listen to Trane's playing before Giant Steps. I think he made Giant Steps out of frustration and to prove a point. I don't enjoy hearing anyone play Giant Steps live and I've heard many do it. I wish it weren't such a litmus test.
Oh, about the number of takes...I think Tommy Flanagan et al were seeing it for the first time.
This makes a lot of sense and rings true to me. Of course there's no way to know for certain since Coltrane is not around to verify or deny it, unfortunately. But the tune does sound a lot like an exercise; although an exercise in Coltrane's hands can sound very musical.I have had two teachers in the past tell me that Coltrane never intended to publish Giant Steps. At the time, he was exploring Tonic movement by thirds (chromatic mediants) and wrote the tune as an exploration of that concept. When he was recording that day, he recorded Giant Steps as an experiment for him to go back and listen to, but the studio told him that they were putting it on the album. Coltrane was upset, and was later interviewed and said that he did not intend for "Giant Steps" to make it out into the world, and that he considered it to be an exercise, not a tune.
I believe the story for a few reasons. For one, he had to call up Tommy Flanagan on the day of the session because his scheduled piano player wasn't willing to record the changes to Giant Steps without time to shed them. For those who didn't know, that explains Tommy Flanagans solo on that tune....The other reason is that "Giant Steps" is a very pretentious title for Coltrane.