Customer Reviews

The Music of John Coltrane (Jazz Giants)

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This review is partially a response to an earlier review. A few things need to be clarified:

1. This is a book of COMPOSITIONS, not solo transcriptions. As such, it only contains the melodies and chord changes of Trane's great compositions.

2. The book is in concert pitch, which makes sense because these tunes can be (and should be) studied and played by players of all instruments (not to mention singers), not just tenor saxophonists.

So what you get here is basically a "fake book" containing ONLY Coltrane's tunes. This is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to play these tunes in a group setting, or arrange them for an ensemble.

I use this book all the time, in both my playing and my teaching. If you're a serious student of jazz, you should get this book.

I have owned this book for four or five years and for my money it is one of the best collections of Coltrane compositions around. It is all in concert pitch, which is what you want if you need to give a lead chart to the rhythm section to accompany you. It may be better to learn the tune off the recording if you can, but you can't expect the rhythm section to necessarily have memorised the same tunes as you.

The book features lead sheets for many late Coltrane tunes that are difficult to find and/or transcribe such as Leo, Venus, Mars, Sun Ship, To Be, Jupiter, Living Space, Peace on Earth etc. It also features annotatations by Alice Coltrane with suggested chords for some of those tunes (she played piano on many of those recordings). Many other types of tunes are covered including those recorded with Cannonball and one from an album with Paul Chambers. Almost all the tunes from that great Atlantic album 'Coltrane Plays the Blues' are included. Another feature of the book is the inclusion of the heads for three major suites of Coltrane's, 'A Love Supreme', 'Meditations' and 'Prayer and Meditation'(from Transition).

There is a great discography at the back of the book that tells you on which album every tune was recorded with label details and the release date to give you a feel for where the tune comes chronologically in Coltrane's career.

I have a couple gripes about the book. 'Syeeda's Flute Song' (great tune off of 'Giant Steps') is not included and the chord changes for 'Satellite' are incorrect. The bass notes are right and there was no piano but you should be able to hear the Coltrane changes from the tenor solo. Anyway, the correct changes are available in the Aebersold playalong, 'Countdown to Giant Steps' if you can't work them out. These complaints are only very minor if you look at the book as a whole however.

If you primarily want the improvised solos, you can order them from Andrew White. On the other hand, most jazz text books I have studied recommend trying to transcribe them yourself. This book does include however, sections of tunes which include improvisation as part of the head (such as the intro to 'Crescent'). These sections are transcribed from the original recording.

If you would like to play and solo yourself over a wide range of Coltrane's repertoire than this is the book for you.

While this book is an excellent collection of John Coltrane's compositions, I would not recommend buying it. For one thing, all of the music in the book has been transcribed from B flat (the key of tenor sax) to C. So, unless you like to instantaneously transcribe music as you play along, or unless you just want to peck things out on a piano, this book is probably not for you. Another disappointment is that the songs don't include any of Coltrane's solos-- they merely give you the basic, introductory tune of the song, with some chord charts and repeat bars thrown in. Needless to say, I'm returning the book.