John Coltrane’s Giant Steps was published in 2002. It was written and illustrated by Chris Raschka.
There is a kitten, a box, a snowflake and some raindrops. They all get together to make Giant Steps... that famous tune by Coltrane.
I know Giant Steps and lots of musicians (particularly saxophonists) struggle to figure out the chord changes in it. If you listen to the original recording the pianist, who probably didn’t have enough rehearsal time, struggles because of the crazy tempo.
In Raschka’s book the group blend into each other and create splashes of colors. It’s an interesting approach to showing people what jazz is like... they have a small breakdown (like many jazz groups when rehearsing) and start again.
There are a couple of pages that go into the breakdown in detail (children might be lost since some of these concepts are difficult even for adults to grasp).
I was a little surprised by the order of the narrator for the raindrops to “make it not too fast and not too slow”... I always thought Giants Step sounded better at a brisk tempo. Well, maybe it’s good not to play things too fast since it’s the group’s first time to play it.
John Coltrane’s Giant Steps is a bit different from the usual picture book so I praise it for that reason. If you want to help someone understand jazz, this book might be good to show to that person (or people).
