“Giant Steps” is one of John Coltrane's best known tunes. He recorded it in 1960 on an album of the same name, which has become a jazz classic. When played properly it is played fast, very insanely fast. That's one thing. The other is that the chord changes are complex and challenging, covering all keys, and they fly by fast as well. It is thus a technically challenging piece to play.
I regard myself as a semi-virtuoso trumpeter. I spent hours working on this tune when I was in graduate school. I even wrote some technical exercises based on the chord changes. I was getting a degree in English Lit. at SUNY Buffalo, but I spent time in an improvisation workshop run by Frank Foster, who'd played, arranged, and composed for Count Basie and was a virtuoso on the tenor sax. He brought it in to the workshop one day. We hacked our way through the tune, but Frank, Frank played the shit out of it. The rhythm section finally gave up – which included Nasar Abadey, who went on to being a pro and now teaches at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore – and Frank continued on alone. He nailed it! Compared to Frank, all I ever managed to do was play at the tune. But to inhabit it, fully, and really play it, that's something else.
To have a big band play this tune, at the proper tempo, that's just insane. But that's what the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band does. Frank Foster wrote the arrangement. The band is directed by Jon Faddis. I'm guessing that Lew Soloff played the trumpet solo. I haven't seen anything to that effect, but he was on the band for that recording and he could certainly have played the solo.
