Playing “Giant Steps” as an instrument

Last weekend I went to a hip-hop jam session. There was a drummer, bassist, guitarist, pianist, and a couple of emcees, and I played samples from my laptop via Ableton. I was going through my jazz folder, dropping different things into Simplers and Drum Racks, and at one point I tried using the first few seconds of “Giant Steps“. That made me remember that I had remixed it a few years ago, and that I should try doing it again.

If you are not deep into online jazz culture, you may not know the current significance of “Giant Steps.” Let me fill in some back story. John Coltrane released the tune in 1960 on his classic album of the same name. It was noteworthy at the time for being extraordinarily difficult to improvise over, due to a combination of its fast tempo and constant key changes. The tune helped transform jazz from a popular music with folkloric origins into the technically demanding, professionalized and academicized art form we know it as today. College-level jazz theory classes are oriented around “Giant Steps” the way that traditional tonal theory classes are oriented around Bach chorales. Being able to shred on the tune is a necessity if you want the jazz bros to take you seriously.

“Giant Steps” turned out to be vastly more important for institutional jazz than for Coltrane’s own musical life. He seems to have only played it live a few times in 1960 before dropping it. The idea of key centers a major third apart stayed with him, but after writing a string of tunes based on the idea, he shifted to more open-ended, trance-like drones and pedals. He continued to use “Giant Steps” changes during his solos, but they were no longer present in the underlying structure of the music. It didn’t matter; the tune took on a life of its own.

As “Giant Steps” became a fixture of jazz institutions, students in those institutions turned it into a meme.

Why do these things make me so sad? In the abstract, I’m open to irreverent takes on classic tunes. Reharmonizing Smash Mouth over Coltrane changes is more creative than just speedrunning the tune for the billionth time. I guess I just don’t like people making fun of Coltrane. I would be more open to it if silly takes on “Giant Steps” resulted in good music, but so far, they haven’t. It’s not enough to curate the jazz museum; we should be able to find new ways to interpret the music. So what do we do?

My preferred approach is to treat the jazz canon as a body of recordings, not just a bunch of abstract compositions. The compositions are fascinating, and we should keep playing them! But I want to hear more reinterpretations of the records themselves, via sampling and remixing. Hip-hop producers sample jazz all the time, and it feels more true to the spirit of the music than a lot of the jazz I hear in music schools. A few years back I tried remixing “Giant Steps”. I thought the concept was strong, but the execution wasn’t quite there. So I decided to take another pass at it. My first remix was radically slowed down. This time, I thought I would preserve the original tempo. I warped out the track and laid it over the Amen break.

Here’s some explanation of what you’re hearing.

• 0:00 – The first note of the tune slowed way down and reversed through a big trippy reverb. There’s also a slowed-down, reversed cymbal crash from the Amen break.
• 0:07 – I chopped up the first time through the head to give it a staccato feel. I like how it makes the bassline stuttery too. I also chopped up the Amen break.
• 0:22 – The second time through the head is unchopped, over the unchopped Amen break.
• 0:37 – I put the first few notes of Coltrane’s solo into a Simpler and did some improvising. Then I edited the best parts of my solo together, tightened them, and did some duplication of phrases.
• 1:21 – I moved the start point of the sample in the Simpler to get the next couple of notes of Coltrane’s solo and played another solo.
• 1:50 – I sliced up the head so that each individual melody note maps to a different pad in a Drum Rack. (This is much less tedious than it sounds.) Then I played a solo and edited the high points together.
• 3:38 – I slowed the head out to half tempo. I used Live’s Beats timestretching mode because I like the stuttery artifacts. At 4:26, there’s a note with no transient marker, and I love the strange timing that results.

I am perfectly aware that people listening to this might see my “Giant Steps” remixes as every bit as disrespectful and musically obnoxious as I find the Smash Mouth meme. I like how my track sounds, but I know plenty of jazz lovers who have no interest in my approach here. That is fine! I don’t propose my track as the right way to interpret a jazz classic in 2023. But I do want people to consider the possibilities here. I love it when people sample and remix jazz and would like to hear it done more, ideally by people who are better producers than I am.

Update:

FWIW, this Barry Harris disquisition of "Giant Steps" is illuminating, leading to a chorus and 2/3 of the most melodically and emotionally satisfying improvising over the tune that I know. The discussion turns to the tune around 1:55, but here's the solo. https://t.co/2SGYQSZo2f

— Mark Stryker (@Mark_Stryker) April 23, 2023