An acknowledged masterpiece and milestone in John Coltrane’s career, “Giant Steps” appears for the first time on SACD in its original stereo mix, in the Atlantic 75 Series of newly-mastered reissues. The compositions, all Coltrane originals, and especially the now-iconic chord progression of the title track, have been closely analyzed by critics and musicologists; Lewis Porter’s book “John Coltrane: His Life and Music” is an excellent resource.

"Giant Steps" is described by the label as “mastered direct to DSD from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound”. For SACD jazz enthusiasts, it’s a must-have disc, but not without a few caveats. Because the music is so well-known, this review will focus on the sound quality of the Analogue Productions SACD, and provide brief listening notes on Coltrane's later Atlantic Records releases.

After 4 years of being paid union scale at Prestige, John Coltrane signed a multi-album deal with Atlantic Records that provided him with a guaranteed annual living wage, and offered his music increased visibility through Atlantic’s wide national distribution. What the deal with Atlantic did not provide was an improvement in the audio quality of the recordings, in comparison to the sessions engineered by Rudy Van Gelder. The 1957 sessions for “Blue Train”, and the 1958 Prestige sessions, beautifully transferred in Craft Recordings 24/192 set “Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings”, are for the most part sonically superior to Coltrane’s Atlantic sessions. RVG knew Coltrane’s sound intimately, having recorded him with the Miles Davis Quintet, in Coltrane-led groups and with many other ensembles from 1955 through 1958. In the move to Atlantic, that sound knowledge was shelved – until RVG resumed engineering most of the Impulse studio albums during the remainder of Coltrane’s life.

The reputation of recording engineer Tom Dowd is haloed by the word “genius” to such an extent that any suggestion of deficiencies in the sound quality of “Giant Steps” smacks of heresy. Dowd’s technical skills and instincts as an engineer of R&B classics is undisputed, but the recordings for “Giant Steps” were far from state of the art in 1959.

The May 4-5 sessions were engineered by Dowd and Phil Ihle, while “Naima” was recorded with different personnel (the “Kind Of Blue” rhythm section) on December 2 as part of a session that was released on “Coltrane Jazz”. The hard left/right separation, tenor saxophone and piano left, drums and bass right, does not serve the players very well. The mono mix was issued by Rhino Atlantic in 2014 as a 24/192 download. Some listeners will prefer its coherence, compared to any stereo reissue.

Although Coltrane’s tenor was reasonably well captured in the May 4-5 sessions, and Art Taylor’s drums have an edgy presence, especially in the intro to “Countdown”, Paul Chambers’ bass is not nearly as tonally vibrant as on RVG’s best recordings, and the piano sound is awful, which no amount of remastering can remedy. Tommy Flanagan was a great pianist and one of the best accompanists of his time. The recording does him a disservice.

MORE COLTRANE ON ATLANTIC

Tracks from the November 24 and December 2, 1959 sessions released on “Coltrane Jazz”, have the same hard L/R mix and mostly the same sonic deficiencies as “Giant Steps”. The repertoire, a mélange of obscure standards and Coltrane originals, is a step back from the artistic advances on the preceding album. Bernie Grundman’s mastering from original master tapes, on Rhino Vinyl and 24/192, can’t redeem this set.

On Coltrane’s return from the 1960 Europe tour with Miles Davis, he began trying to find the right sidemen for a cohesive quartet. Atlantic recorded him with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell from Ornette Coleman’s quartet, in sessions on June 28 and July 8, 1960. The album was released as “The Avant-Garde” in April 1966. Assuming that these sessions were recorded on Atlantic’s Ampex 8-track tape machine (Dowd had acquired the second prototype built by Ampex, in 1958), then it must be assumed that the continued use of a hard L/R mix was Dowd’s preference. The sound overall is slightly better than the preceding sessions, in no small part because the quartet is piano-less.

By Fall 1960, Coltrane had nearly all the players of his classic quartet in place: Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, and Steve Davis on bass. In sessions at Atlantic’s studio on October 21, 24 and 26, the quartet recorded all the tracks that would be released on “My Favorite Things”, “Coltrane Plays The Blues”, and “Coltrane’s Sound”. Only on “Coltrane’s Sound” does Dowd (or whoever mixed the tapes for the album’s 1964 release) place Coltrane in stereo center.

The extant tapes for “Coltrane’s Sound” seem to be in better condition than the other two releases. With the loss of many of Atlantic’s unissued session tapes – and some sources report, first-generation masters – in the 1978 warehouse fire, there’s a possibility that several of the current Atlantic reissues, including AP’s “Giant Steps” SACD, were remastered from LP production tapes rather than original masters.

The final album Coltrane recorded under his Atlantic contract, “Ole”, was tracked at A&R Studios on May 25, 1961. That session, engineered by Phil Ramone, is in another sonic universe from the Dowd recordings. The piano sound is outstanding; the instrument is in proper tune. All the players are vividly captured, and the mix is Left/Center/Right.

As of this writing, there are three more upcoming Atlantic 75 John Coltrane SACDs listed at Acoustic Sounds: “Coltrane Jazz”, “My Favorite Things”, and “Bags & Trane”, If “Ole” ever shows up in the Atlantic 75 series on SACD, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy it. Currently, the best-sounding digital version is the Rhino/Atlantic 24/192 download.

Of the other recent reissues of “Giant Steps”, the 2020 Rhino Atlantic 24/192 download appears to have been EQ’d to strengthen the low bass and emphasize the highs. On my audio system, especially in headphones, that intervention sounds forced. The AP SACD is the clear choice. Ryan K. Smith’s approach to mastering, like Kevin Gray’s, is respectful of the original sound.

Copyright © 2025 Mark Werlin and HRAudio.net

Performance:

Sonics: