Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Giant Steps


Our review of the Turrentine discogrgaphy is now approaching the end of the year 1960.  Young Stanley was now a bona fide Blue Note session player performing on a number of recording for the label.  He recorded several albums under his own name, as well as sets for Jimmy Smith, Horace Parlan, Dizzy Reece, Duke Jordan, and his brother, Tommy.  He even found time to go to Europe and record some  non-Blue Note sessions with Max Roach in Kaiserslautern, West Germany and Paris, France.

But the big news in jazz in 1960 was the February release of John Coltrane's Giant Steps.  The album was a landmark event not only for jazz but for 20th Century music in general.  Lindsay Planer's AllMusic review says "History will undoubtedly enshrine this disc as a watershed the likes of which may never truly be appreciated."  Coltrane's playing incorporated melodic phrasing that came to be known as "sheets of sound" and features his explorations into third-related chord movements. I can't really explain the Giant Steps chord progressions, the so-called "Coltrane Changes," because of my limited understanding of music theory, but there's a great YouTube video that attempts to explain it.  

Anyway, Coltrane's drummer on the album was Art Taylor, and later in 1960 the Art Taylor Sextet recorded an album for Blue Note called A.T.'s Delight.  Turrentine played tenor sax on the album, which opens with a cover of Syeeda's Song Flute from Giant Steps.

In all, it was pretty ballsy to include a cover of Syeeda's Song Flute, or any track from Giant Steps, as it was basically a brand-new material at that time and laid out a template for a new approach to jazz that few were able to fully wrap their heads around yet.  Given the theretofore unmatched technical prowess Trane showed throughout the Giant Steps sessions, it must have taken supreme confidence for Turrentine to perform a track from it in 1960.  

The song provides an opportunity to compare Turrentine's playing at that time to Coltrane's 9or vice versa), another reason while recording the track took courage.  The Art Taylor version is played at a quicker tempo than Trane's original, not surprising for a drummer-led set.  Turrentine doesn't delve into Coltrane's sheet-of-sound chord progressions, but instead improvises with the notes of the Surrey-With-The-Fringe-On-Top melody in a hard-bop style.  He's intermittently relieved (rescued?) by Dave Burn's trumpet, as the two swap lead solo spots back and forth.  In Coltrane's version, once the opening melody is stated and his solo begins, the basic tune is almost lost as Trane lifts off into the nether regions of chord improvisation.  To put it another way, Trance was playing in the new modal style of jazz, while Turrentine and Burns were playing as more traditional hard bop musicians.

Coltrane is the master - no doubt - and his later innovations and explorations leaves Turrentine - and almost every other mortal being - behind in the dust.  But if you listen to Turrentine's attempt above and the standard set by Coltrane below, I think you'll agree that at the very least, Turrentine didn't embarrass himself.

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