Giant Steps

Giant Steps was produced by Nesuhi Ertegun, with Tom Dowd and Phil Iehle engineering at Atlantic Studios in New York. Most of it was recorded on May 4 and 5, 1959 with Tommy Flanagan on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Taylor on drums. "Naima" was done on December 2, 1959 with Wynton Kelly on piano and Jimmy Cobb on drums. An earlier session with Cedar Walton on piano, Chambers and Lex Humphries, dated March 26, 1959 by Wikipedia and Jazzdisco but April 1 in one library catalog, dissatisfied Coltrane and was left off the album; it surfaced later on compilations.

The liner notes are by Nat Hentoff, the photograph by Lee Friedlander and the cover design by Marvin Israel. Of the other tracks, "Naima" is named for his then wife, "Syeeda's Song Flute" for a daughter he adopted, "Mr. P.C." for Paul Chambers and "Cousin Mary" for a cousin. It won an Edison Award in 1961, entered the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2004 and the Grammy Hall of Fame, ranked 102 in Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums, and was certified gold in 2018. AllMusic and DownBeat gave it five stars, and the Penguin Guide called it Trane's first genuinely iconic record. CD reissues came in 1987, 1998 and 2020, and Analogue Productions issued a hybrid SACD in 2024.