Miles Davis
Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings Of Miles Davis, 1963-1964
Columbia Legacy
2004

Eagerly anticipated, Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis 1963-1964 documents the emergence of Miles' second great quintet, featuring saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams. It demonstrates, over the course of seven discs and seven hours, how critical each member of that quintet was. As the group coalesces over a period of two years it's tangible how everything falls into place, like a set of tumblers on a complicated lock.

From the first Los Angeles sessions in April of '63 through to the live Berlin recording of the nascent quintet in September of '64, not only does the introduction of each member have a significant impact on how the relatively stable repertoire of songs is treated, but it also illustrates how each new member causes existing members to rethink and re-examine the way they approach the song list, starting as a relatively straightforward post bop group and ultimately emerging as truly revolutionary interpreters, as would be highlighted even further on the December '65 performances that would make up the now out-of-print box set, The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965.

But first some history. By the spring of '63, any semblance of a permanent lineup for Davis was in shambles. Long-gone were saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, both experiencing their own individual successes, albeit in radically different contexts. Hank Mobley had also departed after recording some memorable but sadly overlooked dates that included those documented on last year's reissue of In Person Friday and Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk, Complete . Also gone were pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb, who ultimately forged their own path as both a trio-for-hire and as a group in their own right.

Faced with an April '63 club date in Los Angeles and a couple of days in the recording studio, Davis pieced together a band that consisted of British ex-pat pianist Victor Feldman , drummer Frank Butler, tenor saxophonist George Coleman, and 26-year old bassist Ron Carter . The quintet converged on a Los Angeles studio on April 16 to record what would eventually become the first side of Miles' Seven Steps to Heaven. Disc one of this collection represents the first time that all the tracks from that two-day session have been collected in one place, including three unreleased tracks that serve to illustrate exactly how different this quintet was from the one that would record the second side of Seven Steps to Heaven a mere month later in New York.

"I Fall in Love Too Easily," "Baby Won't You Please Come Home" and "Basin Street Blues," all ended up on the original release. Two other standards, "So Near, So Far" and "Summer Night," would show up on Directions , a '70s compilation, and Quiet Nights , the '63 release whose uneven quality would cause such a rift between Davis and producer Teo Macero that Miles wouldn't step into the studio again for nearly three years. While Feldman and Butler are clearly more straightahead players, and Carter consequently plays a more straightforward rhythm section role, there still is a certain space, a certain looseness with the time sense that indicates something new is going on.

But the real revelation of the first disc is the version of Feldman's "Joshua" and the two takes of his tune "Seven Steps to Heaven," which would ultimately go unused, although these compositions would be re-recorded by the New York quintet that would end up represented on side two of Seven Steps to Heaven. On the LA session Feldman proves that, while he is a more than able pianist, his strength as a writer may have been even more significant; he may only have played with Miles on this one session, but the tunes 'Seven Steps to Heaven' and 'Joshua' have become standards that are covered to this day. These earlier versions of the tunes swing along nicely, but they lack the fire that they would have with Williams in the drum chair. On "Seven Steps to Heaven" Butler starts out on brushes before switching to sticks for Coleman's solo, lending a lighter weight that works, but feels somehow less substantial. Feldman's accompaniment is capable but has less personality than Hancock's would. And Carter, whose sense of adventure and daring would grow in leaps and bounds when placed in the fertile context of Hancock and Williams, seems somehow constrained by the others.

Overall, this version of the Miles Davis Quintet serves as an interesting footnote in the gradual emergence of the second quintet, but is most memorable for Feldman's compositional contributions, which would remain in the repertoire for the next year or so, and for the introduction of Carter and, to a lesser extent, Coleman.