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Here is a version of Coltrane's Countdown with playback from Phil Wilkinson.
I started learning this tune recently and this is my first attempt to record it.
Before any comments about how these Coltrane tunes are just math exercises, pointless etc., let me explain my motivation.
I am really a melodic guy at heart and have never been very good at playing fast tempos, and particularly with up-tempo tunes which also have complex harmony.
Since the type of work that I do often requires that I am able to play/improvise over fast and/or complex harmony, I started about 1 1/2 years ago trying to improve my weakness.
What I realized is that learning these Coltrane tunes also increased the speed at which I can think, hear and navigate harmony.
This has helped me to have more "headroom" (to use an audio term) to dedicate more of my brain power to construct good melodies when playing other less complex tunes.
So if this is not interesting for you, then please move along, nothing to see here.
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07-16-2025 06:31 PM
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Countdown is an insane track. Even for the Giant Steps Is An Exercise folks, I’m not sure how one could say the same for Countdown.
The Giant Steps solo is killing but Trane is absolutely off the chain on Countdown.
ANYWAY … sounds great.
I’ve always heard Countdown was harder than Giant Steps, even independent of the crazy tempo. I wouldn’t know because I have spent exactly zero time with Countdown …
How did you find it compared to Giant Steps?
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Great playing! Very melodic and nailed the changes.
I agree with Peter, Countdown has always seemed scarier than any of the other Coltrane change tunes, haven't worked on it.
I was just at a session where the house band played it in a half time Latin feel, which was very musical. Reminded me of the Kreisberg version on Trioing (which apparently isn't on YouTube or i'd post it).
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I love this tune but unlike Giant Steps, which I also love, I've never looked closely at it.
Anyway, I enjoyed your rendition of it.
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Sounds like it’s based on ‘Tune Up’, I’d forgotten that (haven’t heard it for a long time).
Great playing as always!
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Excellent playing of a great classic tune.
Inspirational.
I'll have to look at Miles' "Tune Up" again
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Tune up is IIm7/V7/I^7 down in whole steps. Countdown has "Coltrane changes" between the IIm7 & V7 chords.
So for example, Tune Up's Em7 | A7 | D^7 | D^7 | Dm7, etc., becomes: Em7-F7 | Bb^7-Db7 | Gb^7-A7 | D^7 | Dm7-Eb7, etc.
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26-2 next?
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outstanding run...a legit bear of a tune.
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There is a harmonic and melodic similarity between Countdown and Con Alma in the first 8, very clear in this arrangement.
Nice playing on this.
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Thanks for all of the comments.
@Peter: yes, Coltrane's Countdown is almost super-human yet still very musical (at around 300bpm!).
I read through a transcription of Coltrane's original version and it quite interesting in that it is almost completely diatonic with some connecting material like chromatics, enclosures etc.. Since my purpose in learning these tunes is to really get the sound of the chords in my lines, that is also the approach that I utilized.
For me, Giant Steps is much easier only because I have messed around with it for years, whereas I just learned Countdown last week.
I think one tricky aspect to these tunes is that there are very few common tones between adjacent chords, which makes it more difficult to play the way that I like to play; in phrases and not just endless 8th notes. Holding any tone longer than a half-note is not really an option.
@Graham: "26-2 next?" Maybe. At least the original tempo is (only) around 200bpm. It also has an interesting Bop-melody.
Everyone has to decide for themselves whether the effort needed to play these tunes is worthwhile. For me personally I have noticed an improvement in my time, and what I have learned melodically definitely transfers to other tunes.
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Yes, this has also been my sense with studying Coltrane solos.
Originally Posted by Question
I could be completely wrong about this. But it always seemed to me that Charlie Parker thought of things in relatively simple harmonic terms, and knew how to fit the whole chromatic universe onto those harmonies. Coltrane, on the other hand, had relatively straightforward melodic ideas (you can almost always tell what chord he's thinking of even divorced from the chord progression). But he never sticks with just the harmony of the tune, he is always superimposing his own harmony on the fly, sometimes jamming a whole sequence of chords in rapid succession. In each moment it's very diatonic, but when you put it all together, it's very chromatic.
Hard to say for sure, since neither of them ever really explained their thought processes.
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Actually Coltrane did discuss his approach in this Downbeat interview, I think it tends to agree with your description:
Prestige 65th Anniversary
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I think this would very much depend on the period of Trane's music. He used plenty of chromaticism in his modal music, for example - to say nothing of his music from 65 onwards. But you seem to be talking about his music from c. 57-59 if I'm not mistaken. Originally Posted by dasein
I think I know what you're getting at. I've transcribed the first minute of his solo on 'Mars' and it is true that there are small-scale diatonic areas where he explores a particular mode before moving on. Sometimes these tonal areas might be interspersed with patterns which are more difficult to assign as belonging to a particular tonality owing to their faster harmonic rhythm. But much of this is seen through a motivic and intervallic prism which gives a certain freshness to diatonic materials (the use of fourths and pentatonic fragments). And the Giant Steps type of patterns are there but obviously used in a much more stream of consciousness, free way. I think Lewis Porter describes a few passages from 'Venus' as being atonal.
But, I think the thing is that Trane decided to use diatonic materials on these types of tunes ('Countdown' and 'Giant Steps' etc.) because they were chord changes that hadn't really been explored much or at all in jazz before and what's more were played fast, so I guess it was probably a conscious decision on Trane's part to outline the changes in a fairly unambiguous sort of way. But after recording all of this we got things like 'Impressions' whose greater freedom means he does explore greater chromaticism even at often a high tempo...
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Don't forget that the first half of Coltrane's solo on Countdown is just him and Art Taylor on drums. (no harmony)
As James said, in 1960 this harmony was fairly new in Jazz so it already sounded hip to just play directly on the changes.
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The You’ll Hear It podcast dudes did the Giant Steps album a couple weeks ago and isolated Arts drumming on that opening and it’s killer. Originally Posted by Question
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Ok Graham, I accept your challenge! Originally Posted by grahambop
I have actually never heard this tune before.
After you mentioned it I had a listen; learned it yesterday and recorded it today.
It's a cool melody with a few tricky fingerings, thanks for the tip.
At least this one has a reasonable tempo (for Coltrane) at about 196bpm.
Maybe I will also post a separate thread for this tune in case someone else in interested.
Here is Coltrane's 26-2. ( I read that the title is either a bible verse or the track number from the studio session)
Last edited by Question; 07-22-2025 at 05:16 AM.
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