About this time , I was trying for a sweeping sound . I even tried long , rapid lines that Ira Gitler termed “ sheets of sound ” at that time . But actually , I was beginning to apply the three-on-one chord approach , and at that time the tendency was to play the entire scale of each chord . Therefore , they were usually played fast and sometimes sounded like glisses . I found there were a certain number of chord progressions to play in a given time , and sometimes what I played didn ’ t work out in eighth notes , sixteenth notes or triplets . I had to put the notes in uneven groups like fives and sevens in order to get them all in . I thought in groups of notes , not one note at a time . Sometimes what I was doing clashed harmonically with the piano – especially if the pianist wasn ’ t familiar with what I was doing – so a lot of times I just strolled with bass and drums .
From Prestige to Blue Note . This desire to hear and play everything at the same time can be traced back to Coltrane ’ s interest in the harp , on which all the notes can be played with a simple sweep of the strings , which continue to sound unless dampened by the player ’ s hand . “ I got interested in it around 1958 when I was interested in playing arpeggios instead of just straight lines .” Wayne Shorter , who would come over to his house to practice , recalled a collection of harp exercises on the piano music rack : “ He ’ d play something that became sheets of sound . Like a harpist .”
These “ sweeping sounds ” and “ sheets of sound ” are to be found throughout his work , along with his obsession with chords and changes noted above in connection with his collaboration with Monk . In 1958 , the harmonic strategies that would give rise to Giant Steps the following year were confirmed , together with a vocabulary
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