Although Eric Dolphy had been friendly with Coltrane in Los Angeles since the 1950s, it was not until a cross country American tour in 1960 that he was initiated into Coltrane's regular working band. In the autumn of 1961 they embarked on a European tour, playing over 30 venues in under three weeks, leaving in their wake a series of live concert recordings and radio broadcasts that would thereafter give discographers grey hairs. The most recent documentation of this tour prior to the Le Chant Du Monde 7CD set was Acrobat's So Many Things: The European Tour 1961 (Acrobat ACQCD7085) from 2015, which covers the Paris, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Stockholm performances across four discs, plus an extensive essay by Simon Spillett, plus photos and reproductions of memorabilia from the tour. This French issue goes further, adding one extra tune from the second house of the Stockholm concert – ‘Impressions’ – and concert recordings from Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Berlin, Baden-Baden and Düsseldorf. Clearly, this presents a more complete documentation of this historic tour, but the liner notes are, of course, in French, albeit the reproduction of the full concert itinerary will be useful to historians. What is generally regarded as the high point of the Dolphy-Coltrane collaboration, Live at the Village Vanguard (Impulse!) was recorded on 2/3 November that year, but there are several moments on European Tour 1961 featuring Eric Dolphy when Coltrane, spurred on by the enthusiastic response of the European audiences, was reaching comparable highs. The significance of yet another reissue of Giant Steps is that it is in mono, a spin-off from the recent vinyl box set John Coltrane: The Atlantic Years in Mono. Certainly, it brings a sense of focus to the sound that the more spatial stereo sound lacks, some called it “a wholeness” – albeit achieved at the mixing board – that presents a different way of appreciating this classic recording. The high-spot, is of course, the title-track, a 16-bar theme where every note of its melody, regardless of its duration, is harmonised (that is, has a fresh chord to go with it). This has the effect of de-emphasising the melody and bringing harmony to the forefront of the improvisers mind. To unlock the complexity of improvising on such fast moving changes, Coltrane used pattern running — particularly the 1-2-3-5 pattern that occurs over 30 times. Indeed, as jazz educator Jerry Coker pointed out in Elements of the Jazz Language for the Developing Improviser, Coltrane's solo comprises almost 40 per cent patterns, unheard of in jazz at the time, but as a tool of the jazz educator's armoury, has been done to death by young saxophonists particularly today. Equally important was Coltrane's harmonic approach with key centres moving in major thirds on the title track, then a rarity in jazz (a rare example of this occurring is the middle eight of ‘Have You Met Miss Jones?’) that also occurs in ‘Countdown’ (a contrafact of ‘Tune-Up’ by Miles Davis) and ‘Naima’.