JOHN COLTRANE GIANT STEPS INSANELY RARE ORIG ATLANTIC BLACK LABEL MONO LP SUPERB

$

1,525

WE CURRENTLY HAVE  MORE THAN 300  LISTED ITEMS

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·       JOHN COLTRANE with TOMMY FLANNAGAN, PAUL CHAMBERS, ART TAYLOR, WYNTON KELLY and JIMMY COBB – GIANT STEPS – ORIGINAL 1959 ATLANTIC RECORDS MONO LP 1311

·       ORIGINAL U.S. PRESSING

MONSTROUSLY RARE ORIGINAL FIRST PRESSING ON THE BLACK ATLANTIC MONO  LABEL WITH SILVER PRINT

·       ONE OF THE GREATEST,  RAREST AND MOST COVETED JAZZ PRESSINGS IN EXISTENCE; IN FACT, BY ALMOST UNIVERSAL ACCLAIM, PROBABLY ONE OF TOP-5 GREATEST JAZZ RECORDINGS OF ALL TIME!

*** THIS IS THE KEEPER COPY AND YOUR FINAL UPGRADE: THE BEST-PRESERVED COPY WE HAVE FOUND IN 47 YEARS OF COLLECTING RECORDS AND THE BEST COPY YOU WILL EVER FIND. ONLY ONE SMALL SPINDLE MARK ON EACH SIDE - THE DISC WAS APPARENTLY PLAYED ONLY ONCE AND THEN MOTHBALLED FOR THE NEXY 60 YEARS; THIS IS THE STUFF WET JAZZ DREAMS ARE MADE OF! ***

·       EXTRENELY RARE MONO PRESSING, MANY TIMES RARER THAN STEREO (NOTE: STEREO PRESSINGS OF THIS TITLE ON SOLID GREEN ATLANTIC LABELS (IN USE BETWEEN 1958-1959) APPARENTLY DO NOT EXIST AND WERE NEVER PRODUCED; ESSENTIALLY, ORIGINAL MONO PRESSINGS START ONE GENERATION OF LABELS EARLIER THAN STEREOS)

·       INCREDIBLY GREAT AND ILLUMINATIVE LINER NOTED BY THE LEGENDARY ►NAT HENTOFF -- EASILY, HANDS DOWN, THE GREATEST LINER NOTES IN THE HISTORY OF JAZZ. WE RARELY FIND LINER NOTED THAT ADD A WHOLE NEW DIMENSION TO THE MUSIC; THIS IS ONE OF THOSE EXQUISITELY RARE CASES.

·       THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC, FIRST U.S. PRESSING; THIS IS NOT A REISSUE, AN IMPORT, OR A COUNTERFEIT PRESSING.

·       ORIGINAL, THICK CARDBOARD COVER (AMERICAN STYLE)

·       ORIGINAL LAMINATED COVER

·       ORIGINAL TOM DOWN RECORDING & MASTERING (TOM DOWD WAS FOR ATLANTIC WHAT RUDY VAN GELDER WAS FOR BLUE NOTE)

·       VERY THICK, HEAVY VINYL PRESSING

·       CLEAN, WEAR-FREE LABELS

·       MONO version of this album has NEVER been available on legitimate Compact Disc or in any other digital format.

(►PLEASE SEE THE IMAGE OF THE COVER, LABEL OR BOTH, SHOWN BELOW)

(Note: this is a REAL image of the ACTUAL item you are bidding on. This is NOT a "recycled" image from our previous auction. What you see is what you’ll get.  GUARANTEED!)

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History will undoubtedly enshrine this disc as a watershed the likes of which may never truly be appreciated. Giant Steps bore the double-edged sword of furthering the cause of the music as well as delivering it to an increasingly mainstream audience. Although this was John Coltrane's debut for Atlantic, he was concurrently performing and recording with Miles Davis. Within the space of less than three weeks, Coltrane would complete his work with Davis and company on another genre-defining disc, Kind of Blue, before commencing his efforts on this one. Coltrane (tenor sax) is flanked by essentially two different trios. Recording commenced in early May of 1959 with a pair of sessions that featured Tommy Flanagan (piano) and Art Taylor (drums), as well as Paul Chambers — who was the only band member other than Coltrane to have performed on every date. When recording resumed in December of that year, Wynton Kelly (piano) and Jimmy Cobb (drums) were instated — replicating the lineup featured on Kind of Blue, sans Miles Davis of course. At the heart of these recordings, however, is the laser-beam focus of Coltrane's tenor solos. All seven pieces issued on the original Giant Steps are likewise Coltrane compositions. He was, in essence, beginning to rewrite the jazz canon with material that would be centered on solos — the 180-degree antithesis of the art form up to that point. These arrangements would create a place for the solo to become infinitely more compelling. This would culminate in a frenetic performance style that noted jazz journalist Ira Gitler accurately dubbed "sheets of sound." Coltrane's polytonal torrents extricate the amicable and otherwise cordial solos that had begun decaying the very exigency of the genre — turning it into the equivalent of easy listening. He wastes no time as the disc's title track immediately indicates a progression from which there would be no looking back. Line upon line of highly cerebral improvisation snake between the melody and solos, practically fusing the two. The resolute intensity of "Countdown" does more to modernize jazz in 141 seconds than many artists do in their entire careers. Tellingly, the contrasting and ultimately pastoral "Naima" was the last tune to be recorded, and is the only track on the original long-player to feature the Kind of Blue quartet. What is lost in tempo is more than recouped in intrinsic melodic beauty.

(EXCERPT FROM AN ONLINE REVIEW BY  LINDSAY PLANER, ALL MUSIC GUIDE  /ALLMUSIC.COM/)

Giant Steps aptly deserves it's place as one of the towering masterworks of modern Jazz and as being the other big modal masterwork (after Kind of Blue, which he also performed on). Giant Steps is almost like a complete 180-degree turn in terms of modal based sound compared with Kind of Blue. Both are groundbreaking, experimental modal works but Kind of Blue is luscious, lyrical, impressionistic, relaxed, yet complex and accessible whereas Giant Steps is more complex, more intense, and much more aggressively challenging in nature, but no less satisfying. Coltrane flies out the gate with the off the hook title track which has Coltrane almost tripping over his own rapidly played, complex chord changes with bassist Paul Chamber's and drummer Art Taylor together pounding their instruments away, barely keeping up with Coltrane before slowing down somewhat for the more explicitly hard bop oriented Cousin Mary before returning to the equally cerebral and visceral off the hook sound of the title track with Countdown which gives a little more flexibility to Art Taylor, who opens the song with an explosive solo. The next two songs, Spiral and Syeeda's Song Flute calm things down a little bit and go back the more bop oriented sound of Cousin Mary but are a bit more inventive in that they both involve some beautifully inventive middle sections where Tommy Flanagan's lovely piano work and Paul Chamber's bass work are given room to roam and they gradually calm the song down to an even more relaxed note before returning the mid tempo energy with Coltrane with Flanagan's work on Spiral being all the more distinctive as he makes his piano riffs increasingly softer to give the impression of going down a spiral. Naima is the albums sole ballad and it's astonishing. Naima's romantic, lyrical beauty easily ranks it up there with Miles Davis's Blue in Green, Circle, and Pee Wee, Dave Brubeck's Strange Meadow Lark, Wayne Shorter's Infant Eyes, and Ornette Coleman's Peace as being one of the greatest jazz ballads ever recorded and it cements John Coltrane's place up there with his contemporary Miles Davis as being one of the greatest jazz balladeer's of all time. Also, Naima features a fantastic performance from the amazing and underrated Wynton Kelly, who gives the song one of the best performances of his career. Coltrane concludes the album on an upbeat note with Mr. P.C. (the P.C. stands for Paul Chamber's, not Political Correctness) which combines the sort of bop based sound of Syeeda's Song Flute, Spiral, and Cousin Mary with the complex sounds of the title track and Countdown (even though it's chord changes are simpler). Listen to it in mono if you can.

 (EXCERPT FROM AN ANONYMOUS ONLINE REVIEW)

"Giant Steps" is about as aptly named an album as you will ever come across. With little warning, Coltrane's new approach to jazz took the music in a new direction, with a huge gap existing between the jazz of the past and that of the future. For the most part, Coltrane's music - and that of his ever-expanding legion of followers - was now irrevocably headed down an avant-garde path focused primarily on soloing, as opposed to melody. The result is jarring and challenging to listen to, even today. "Giant Steps" certainly isn't a place to start listening to jazz; new listeners will feel lost in a map written in a foreign language. It requires education into the history and changing sounds of jazz before and since to understand it's many strengths. The beautiful "Naima" may be the lone exception, as it was performed by the same band who appeared on Miles Davis's much more accessible "Kind of Blue." If it were not for the obvious absence of Miles himself, the song would fit perfectly on that prior masterpiece. Though the leap Coltrane took here remains controversial, his musicianship and bravery are beyond reproach.

 (EXCERPT FROM AN ONLINE REVIEW BY KENNETH BRIGHAM, ALL MUSIC GUIDE  /ALLMUSIC.COM/)

For additional historical information on this album, including track listing ►CLICK HERE

TO SEE IF WE HAVE OTHER LISTED ITEMS BY THIS GROUP OR ARTIST ►  CLICK HERE

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·       CONDITION:

·       RECORD

 (IMPORTANT NOTE: unless otherwise noted, ALL records are graded visually, and NOT play-graded!; we  grade records under the strong, diffuse room light or discrete sunlight)

(a)          WE GRADE THE VINYL AS NEAR MINT. The original luster is very much intact, and the vinyl shines and sparkles almost like new.

(b)          The record is pressed on a beautiful, thick, inflexible vinyl, which was usually used for the first or very early pressings. Usually, the sound on such thick vinyl pressings is full-bodied, vivid, and even dramatic. Do not expect to obtain such a majestic analog sound from a digital recording!

(c)           Mono pressing of this title is much rarer, and by far more  preferable to its stereo counterpart. We think that the mix is more natural, humane, "organic" and that the mixes are somewhat different than on the stereo version. We estimate that stereo copies (which includes subsequent pressings and reissues) of this album outnumber mono pressings by a ratio of at least 10:1.

(d)          The record comes in the original stock inner sleeve.

(e)           Of course, this is a full-bodied ANALOG recording, and not an inferior, digital recording!!!

·       COVER (THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, LAMINATED, GLOSSY COVER):

THE COVER IS NEAR MINT !

The following flaws or imperfections are noted on the cover:

-         Cover shows JUST A HINT of yellowing on both sides, apparently from aging.  (BARELY VISIBLE)

NO OTHER VISIBLE FLAWS OR IMPERFECTIONS ON THE  COVER

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POSTAGE & SHIPPING:

We offer THREE postage rates for both Domestic and International Mail: Media Mail, Priority Mail and Express Mail for domestic, and First Class, Priority International Mail, and Express International Mail for international orders. INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS PLEASE NOTE: WE RECOMMEND that you pay for USPS International Priority Mail OR International Express mail when making a payment in order to obtain tracking information, which is NOT available for First Class International shipments.

INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE rates vary from country to country. For SPECIFIC international and domestic postage rates ►click here. While you can be rest assured that ►our packaging is careful, sturdy and impact-proof, please note that damage, loss or theft in transit is always possible, and in the case of some countries even PROBABLE. To discuss this potential problem and ensure flawless delivery, please contact us thru eBay BEFORE placing a bid.

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