Song · John Coltrane
“Naima” by John Coltrane
From the album Giant Steps (1960)
“Naima” by John Coltrane appears on 3 radio countdowns from 3 stations between 2001 and 2023. It was first released in 1960 on the album Giant Steps. Its best result is #147 on the 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of All Time. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #1,693 indie & aaa song of all time.
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John Coltrane cut "Naima" for Giant Steps, his 1960 album on Atlantic, a ballad he had written in 1959 and named for his wife at the time, Juanita Naima Grubbs. His tenor doesn't so much play the slow, restrained melody as cradle it.
The harmony is the real head trip: by Coltrane's own account, suspended chords float over an E-flat pedal tone in the outer sections and a B-flat pedal in the bridge, so the tune hovers rather than moves. Wynton Kelly takes a brief piano solo over Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums; Nesuhi Ertegun produced, and Tom Dowd and Phil Iehle recorded it. It became one of Coltrane's first well-known pieces, he recorded it again and again, on The Complete Copenhagen Concert and Live at the Village Vanguard Again! among others, and it is a jazz standard now.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 1407 | WFPK | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2000 |
| 2004 | 368 | WXPN | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2004) | 885 |
| 2023 | 147 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of All Time | 909 |
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