Seven Steps to Heaven

Background

After the unfinished sessions for Quiet Nights in 1962, Davis returned to club work. However, he had a series of health problems in 1962, which made his live dates inconsistent and meant that he missed gigs, with financial repercussions. Faced with diminishing returns, by late 1962 his entire band quit, Hank Mobley to a solo career, and the rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb to work as a unit. The departure of Chambers especially was a blow, as he had been the only man still left from the original formation of the quintet in 1955.

With club dates to fulfill, Davis hired several musicians to fill in: Frank Strozier on alto saxophone and Harold Mabern on piano, with George Coleman and Ron Carter arriving early in the year. For shows on the West Coast in March, Davis added drummer Frank Butler, but when it came time for the sessions, Davis jettisoned Strozier and Mabern in favor of pianist Victor Feldman. With a lucrative career as a session musician, Feldman declined Davis' offer to join the group, and both he and Butler were left behind in California. Back in New York, Davis located the musicians who would be with him for the next six years, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams; with Carter and Coleman, the new Miles Davis Quintet was in place. Williams, then only 17 years old, had been working with Jackie McLean, and Hancock had already scored a hit single with "Watermelon Man", recorded by percussionist Mongo Santamaria.

Music

The assembled group at the April recording sessions finished enough material for an entire album, but Davis decided the uptempo numbers were not acceptable, and redid all of them with the new group at the May sessions in New York. Two of the ballad tunes recorded in Los Angeles were old – "Baby Won't You Please Come Home" written in 1919 and a hit for Bessie Smith in 1923, while "Basin Street Blues" had been introduced by Louis Armstrong in 1928. None feature Coleman; all are quartet performances with Davis and the rhythm section.

The uptempo numbers from New York in May include Feldman's "Joshua", which stayed in the Davis performance book for the rest of the decade. This is the last of Davis' studio albums with standards rather than band originals; they were gone by the time the quintet made its last change, Wayne Shorter replacing Coleman in late 1964.

On March 15, 2005, Legacy Records reissued the album for compact disc with two bonus tracks, both from the Los Angeles sessions in April. "Summer Night" had been previously released on Quiet Nights to bring that album up to an acceptable running time.

Personnel

Tracks 1, 3, 5, 7 & 8 – recorded in Hollywood on April 16 or 17, 1963

Tracks 2, 4 & 6 – recorded in New York on May 14, 1963