"''Giant Steps' as Shorter Steps"

(For your own ease of study off-line,
click here to download a printable PDF collection of the chord changes in C Treble, C Bass, Bb, Eb, and F, plus the musical examples in C;
and click here to download the two mp3 files of the audio for the examples. You can, however, see all the concert C examples below on this web page.)

I’m always looking for ways to bridge students’ gap between improvising over the more common cycle-of-fifth standard tunes and “Giant Steps,” with its unsettling newness of the “up a minor third, down a fifth” chord progressions that frequent John Coltrane’s landmark composition (Example 1):

(Click on the above musical example to hear the related audio.)

So, as in life, I look for what is shared in common! That can lead to greater successes and often dwarfs what divides us.

My friend and colleague Neil Gonsalves (director of the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa) composed his own tune-variation, “Little Giants,” posting it online and inviting others to solo over it and post their recordings. His resulting progression of descending chords, though not compatible with Coltrane’s own melody, frequently substituted minor chords for dominants. To explore it, visit <https://tinyurl.com/4a7hewen>; see #littlegiants on Facebook; or look up Gonsalves’ name and “Little Giants” on Facebook or YouTube for a link to his Google folder of backing-track plus lead sheets in various keys.

Neil’s progression replaced Coltrane’s opening Bmaj7 D7 Gmaj7 Bb7 Ebmaj7 with Bmaj7 Bbm11 Abmaj7 Gm11 Fmaj7. The pattern of major, minor, major, minor, major must have resonated with me, though the arrival-chord was not Coltrane’s Ebmaj7.

Later, while mentoring a student in a subsequent lesson, I recognized a different tonal organization for “Giant Steps” that I don’t recall encountering previously. I can’t imagine I’m the first one to conceive of it; but since this uncommon approach has since greatly assisted performances by improvisors newer to the tune, I’m outlining it here for you and your own students to share and explore.

Two for Five, and Five for Two

The original opening phrase of “Giant Steps” quickly hits you with its novel cycle: Bmaj7 D7 Gmaj7 Bb7 Ebmaj7. The ingenuity of third-leaps upward (instead of fifths downward), plus shifting key-centers mid-measure (instead of the more-typical barline-locale) can be disorienting, especially if transposing the tune to different keys.

While ii-V progressions may seem more familiar, I regularly remind my students that when it comes to chords, “any ii can have its V, and any V can have its ii.” Both chords exist in the one key, one family; and only one tone of emphasis needs to change above the bass-tone for a ii7 chord to become a V9 chord (Example 2, shown in G):

If you choose not to shift that seventh of the ii chord to the third of the V chord, then the ii7 chord becomes instead a V9sus (Example 3), still very much in the same key:

So if you were to solo over a modal tune of all minor chords, you could still approach soloing as if their related V-chords also follow them. And over a tune of all dominant chords, such as a basic blues, you could consider adding in their respective preceding minor ii chords (as demonstrated in so many bebop blues tunes).

That established, what happens if we replace each dominant V chord in the first three bars of this four-measure “Giant Steps” progression with instead its related ii chord? We’ll arrive at a descending-bass pattern that is more linear throughout the phrase: descending whole-steps representing the same key centers as the original chords. As you can see in Example 4, Bmaj7 D7 Gmaj7 Bb7 Ebmaj7 becomes Bmaj7 Am7 Gmaj7 Fm7 Ebmaj7:

Now we have a memorable linear chord progression (B A G F Eb)—rather than the original based on leaps (B D G Bb Eb); and the chords descend in consistent whole-steps. Moreover, we have alternating chord-qualities (major, minor, major, minor, major).

Suspending Disbelief

The sonic effect, if Coltrane’s bass-tones are preserved, is merely as if we’d altered the original D7 to D7sus (Am7/D) and Bb7 to Bb7sus (Fm7/Bb), as shown in Example 5:

While I’m not suggesting Am7 and Fm7 as necessarily ideal chord substitutions for comping at these locales, they are indeed compatible with Coltrane’s melody. For a secondary pianist such as myself, they do increase the ease of comping. And if I further choose to conceive of the Am7 and Fm7 instead as Am6 and Fm6, I’ve then voiced over Coltrane’s bass tones a D9 and Bb9 (Example 6) corresponding with the original V chords in the second half of Coltrane’s first two measures:

More importantly, this new flow of alternating major and minor qualities, along with their descending roots, preserves the key centers of the tune while providing a linear-thinker harmonic steps that are not so giant—a perspective that is initially easier to process.

Complete the phrase with the dominant chord originally found in the fourth bar; and we find that though its quality is indeed dominant, the bass still descends, now by half-step, from Ebmaj7 to the fourth measure’s D7 (Example 7): Bmaj7 Am7 Gmaj7 Fm7 Ebmaj7 D7.

Following a cycle-of-fifth drop from measure four to five, the next four measures then transform into a harmonic pattern parallel to the first four, just a major third lower, becoming Gmaj7 Fm7 Ebmaj7 C#m7 Bmaj7 Bb7 (Example 8).

The Easy Part

The last eight bars are considered simpler by most musicians since no minor-third chord-leaps ensue. Yet we can simplify them further with the oft-used concept of eliminating the ii chords and focusing more on the V’s. This creates four pairs of chords that descend by half-step while shifting quality from major to dominant and back—each pair descending a fifth to the next pair. Thus the third four-bar phrase becomes Ebmaj7 D7 Gmaj7 F#7, and the fourth phrase Bmaj7 Bb7 Ebmaj7 F#7 (Example 9):

By doing so, we have created a minor-third leap-progression in the final two bars (Ebmaj7 F#7). If you prefer to eliminate all minor-third progressions, then in the final bar choose the original C#m7 instead of the original F#7 (thus the ii for its V, Example 10), resulting in a descending whole-step movement from the preceding Ebmaj7 to the C#m7 (Bmaj7 Bb7 Ebmaj7 C#m7) and another one proceeding from that C#m7 to the Bmaj7 at the top of the next chorus of the tune:

Shorter Steps

John Coltrane’s original chords and melody display not only musical brilliance but mathematical elegance. The “shorter steps” above, derived from the original, have their own elegance, arriving at the 16-bar progression shown in totality within Example 11 that a budding soloist could visualize over the original comping:

(Click on the above musical example to hear the related audio.)

If you find “Giant Steps” a challenge, give this alternate look a try. Share it with others, and then work back towards mastering Coltrane’s original changes. Remember that a speedy tempo is not required to enjoy the beauty of these harmonies! If you’ve already mastered his progressions, you may find—as some of my more advanced students have—that soloing with these mostly stepwise chords in mind can open up some new perspectives for your improvisations.

Find PDFs of these chord progressions printed in keys of C, Bb, Eb, and F plus a play-along track archived with this article.

(As noted above: for your own ease of study off-line,
click here to download a printable PDF collection of the chord changes in C Treble, C Bass, Bb, Eb, and F, plus the musical examples in C;
and click here to download the two mp3 files of the audio for the examples. You can, however, see all the concert C examples above on this web page.)

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