102) Giant Steps : Rolling Stone

With characteristic humility, Coltrane said the title of this album referred to the loping instrumental gait of his bassist, Paul Chambers. In fact, the LP was one of two giant steps Coltrane himself made in 1959: his playing on Miles Davis' epochal Kind of Blue and the recording of this, Coltrane's Atlantic debut. On seven originals, he played with a heated melodic enthusiasm -- flying clusters of notes -- that declared new possibilities for jazz improvisation and predicted the ferocious, harmonically open lyricism of his mid-Sixties records on Impulse. "Mr. P.C.," another nod to Chambers, is now a stalwart of the contemporary jazz repertoire.

Total album sales: Under 500,000

Peak chart position: N/A

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