Happy 50th Birthday to "Kind Of Blue" & "Giant Steps"

1959 was a watershed year for jazz, primarily sparked by these two universally heralded masterpieces.

Recorded less than a month apart (and both featuring Coltrane) the former was the pinnacle of harmonic improvisation (vertical) while the latter was largely responsible for ushering in the era of melodic improvisation (horizontal).

In a broad sense, they work as bookends...Giant Steps writing the closing chapter on the language of bebop pioneered by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell & Thelonious Monk...and Kind Of Blue pioneering the new modal approach that would go on to inspire the majority of jazz throughout the 60's & 70's (and also influencing artists as disparate as Santana, The Allman Brothers, Buffalo Springfield, The Doors and countless others).

John Coltrane - Giant Steps

Two of the greatest albums ever. Although I think A Love Supreme was John's best album, Giant Steps is a fine record as well.

Not really familiar with the Coltrane album, but Kind Of Blue is one of my favorite albums, Jazz or otherwise.

EDIT: I haven't actually thought of this album in years, pretty happy you posted this, Ill finally have to pick it up on disc, but anyway, it reminded me of funny story from when I was younger: My first venture into playing an instrument was actually with a saxophone from the 4th grade up til about the 8th, and as a result Kind Of Blue ended up becoming of my regular weekly plays throughout middle school and all, and I used to like to try to play along with the album (So What in particular) and when I started smoking when I was about 13, our elderly neighbor who lived behind us at the time used to call me "that goddamn beatnik kid" when hed see me practicing out in the garage. Just figured Id share, thanks for reminding me of a great album, Shawn.

Just found this AWESOME video of Giant Steps, showing the progression with animated musical notation. This is COOL!

Awesome videos. Never actually heard the Coltrane before either, but, Im diggin it.

Y' know, when i read the title of this post I thought it was a birthday shout out to 2 members I did not know. I need to step outside the hard rock/metal genre every now and again.

the sentinel wrote:

Y' know, when i read the title of this post I thought it was a birthday shout out to 2 members I did not know. I need to step outside the hard rock/metal genre every now and again.

I can empathize. If someone had asked me what I thought of "Giant Steps" or "Kind Of Blue" in 1994 I would have had no idea what the hell they were talking about. Then in 1995 my girlfriend was writing a paper for college and picked Miles Davis as the subject. She came home one evening with 5 different Miles CDs and would play them while writing the paper...when I heard Kind Of Blue something about it just hooked me instantly. I've been a jazz fanatic ever since.

'Kind of Blue' is an excellent album and was the second Miles Davis album I ever purchased (on tape) loved it instantly. Never owned 'Giant Steps' by John Coltrane, I'll have to change that status soon.

xyz wrote:

Although I think A Love Supreme was John's best album....

I remember a time when I was your age and listened to this album constantly. The A Love Supreme mantra has been completely glued to the cave walls of my brain and pops up from time to time whenever it wishes.

The amount of trivia out there on the internet is truly amazing:

"50 years ago today (03/02/1959) at 2:30 PM the first recording session
for Kind of Blue commenced at the 30th St. studio of Columbia records."