Giant Steps

This article is about the John Coltrane album. For the composition on the first track of this album, see Giant Steps (composition). For other uses, see Giant Steps (disambiguation).

Giant Steps
Studio album by
John Coltrane
ReleasedFebruary 1960 (1960-02)[1][2]
RecordedMay 4–5, 1959
December 2, 1959
StudioAtlantic Studios
New York City[3]
Genre
Length37:03
LabelAtlantic
ProducerNesuhi Ertegun
John Coltrane chronology
Soultrane
(1958) 		Giant Steps
(1960) 		Coltrane Jazz
(1961)

Giant Steps is a studio album by the jazz musician John Coltrane. It was released in February 1960 through Atlantic Records.[1][2][4] This was Coltrane's first album as leader for the label, with which he had signed a new contract the previous year. The record is regarded as one of the most influential jazz albums of all time. Many of its tracks have become practice templates for jazz saxophonists.[5][6] In 2004, it was one of fifty recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. It attained gold record status in 2018, having sold 500,000 copies.[7]

Two tracks, "Naima" and "Syeeda's Song Flute", are respectively named after Coltrane's wife at the time and her daughter, whom he adopted. A third, "Mr. P.C.", takes its name from the initials of bassist Paul Chambers, who played on the album. A fourth, "Cousin Mary", is named in honor of Mary Lyerly, Coltrane's younger cousin.

  1. ^ a b Ostrow, Marty; Howard, Ira, eds. (January 23, 1960). "New Darin Album" (PDF). The Cash Box. New York: The Cash Box Publishing Co. p. 51. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 13, 2023.
  2. ^ a b Ostrow, Marty; Howard, Ira, eds. (February 13, 1960). "February Album Releases" (PDF). The Cash Box. New York: The Cash Box Publishing Co. p. 46. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 13, 2023.
  3. ^ Atlantic Masters CD Edition Liner Notes, 1998
  4. ^ DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Schmaler, Wolf; Wild, David (2013). Porter, Lewis (ed.). The John Coltrane Reference. New York/Abingdon: Routledge. p. 564. ISBN 9780415634632. Retrieved January 2, 2020.
  5. ^ Ben Ratliff. Coltrane: The Story of A Sound. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux; 2007. ISBN 978-0-374-12606-3. pp. 53-54.
  6. ^ Lewis Porter. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999. ISBN 0-472-10161-7, p. 145.
  7. ^ "What's News". The New York City Jazz Record. No. 202. January 2019. p. 5.