Giant Steps

About

"Giant Steps" is a jazz instrumental composed by John Coltrane. Released on his 1960 album of the same name, it would later become a widely covered jazz standard. The track grew notorious among jazz fans and players for its rapid and drastic key changes, making it very difficult to improvise over. Starting in the 2010s, the song would become the subject of mashups and remixes.

Origin

"Giant Steps" was released as the opening track of jazz artist John Coltrane's 1960 album of the same name. In the years following its release, the song would become known for its overall complexity, eventually cementing its status as a jazz standard covered by a multitude of artists and helping in elevating Coltrane to influential status in jazz music (shown below).

Spread

On August 29th, 2017, mashup channel SiIvagunner uploaded a "high-quality rip" of "Drowning" from Sonic the Hedgehog. featuring a 30 second clip of the song slowly increasing in speed (shown below, left). On November 12th, 2018, Vox uploaded a video about the composition as part of its "Earworm" series, explaining the music theory behind the track that made it one of the most infamous songs among jazz musicians.

Vox's video led to a surge of remixes either of the track's melody or of its infamous chord changes, or "Coltrane Changes." On June 23rd, 2019, YouTuber Simon Fransman set the Mii Channel Theme to the changes, gaining over 213,000 views (shown below, left). On March 15th, 2019, YouTuber Mathias Lohne uploaded a remix of "Sandstorm" set to the chord changes, gaining over 200,000 views (shown below, right)

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References