What is a Coltrane change in jazz music?

Coltrane Changes. If you've been playing jazz for a while and have really gotten deep into it, you've probably had to confront them. At some point you've attempted to play Giant Steps at a jam session or even by yourself at home and had to learn the hard lesson: it's not easy! read more

Coltrane change in jazz music is a variation in chord progression (using other chords as substitute) instead of the common jazz chord progressions. John Coltrane used it for the first time (hence the name). read more

Coltrane continued his explorations on the 1960 album Giant Steps, and expanded upon the substitution cycle in his compositions "Giant Steps" and "Countdown", the latter of which is a reharmonized version of Eddie Vinson's "Tune Up". The Coltrane changes are a standard advanced harmonic substitution used in jazz improvisation. read more

In this lesson we’re going to look at 2 fundamental types of Coltrane Changes that you need to understand before moving forward to others: the Three Tonic System and the Four Tonic System. In the next post we’ll talk about how you can apply Coltrane Changes to different jazz standards, but for now this is a necessary starting point. read more