Tuesday, January 13, 2009

John Coltrane: an unbelievable video of Giant Steps



Giant Steps is an early John Coltrane song. This video by Dan Cohen matches the notation to his actual playing in real time. I don't know if it's software, or hand-done.

It's interesting at the head of the song, but when John takes his solo, it becomes completely insane, and beautiful. I never really thought about it before, but this tune is just one hairy solo, bracketed by a short beginning and end (well, a little piano soloing too). Giant Steps is, as I said, early Coltrane, before he put his incredible quartet together. This is a must see video!



---o0o---

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's absolutely stunning. Yeah you can tell that the background for this image is from a notation book (you can even see the text from the back side of the pages as well as the page numbers in some instances) but I have no idea how the notes are being populated.

This video is a great way for people who don't understand jazz to visualize how impressive this genre really is.

And if you'll excuse me, I have to pick my jaw up off the floor now.