Miles Davis – Seven Steps To Heaven (2023 Remaster) (1963/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Miles Davis – Seven Steps To Heaven (2023 Remaster) (1963/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:13 minutes | 490 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia – Legacy

Seven Steps to Heaven is the eighth studio album on Columbia Records by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in 1963, catalogue CL 2051 and CS 8851 in stereo. Recorded at Columbia’s 30th Street Studios in Manhattan, and at Columbia Studios in Los Angeles, in sessions recorded in April of 1963 (in Los Angeles), and May of 1963 (in New York). It presents the Miles Davis Quintet in transition, with the New York session introducing the rhythm section of Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, who would become Davis’ regular sidemen for the next five years. Upon release, the album was Davis’ most successful on the Billboard pop LPs chart up to that point, peaking at number 62.

Seven Steps to Heaven finds Miles Davis standing yet again on the fault line between stylistic epochs. In early 1963, pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb left to form their own trio, and Davis was forced to form a new band, which included Memphis tenor player George Coleman and bassist Ron Carter. When Davis next entered the studio in Hollywood, he added local drummer Frank Butler and British studio ace Victor Feldman, who ultimately decided not to go on the road with Davis. It’s easy to see why Davis liked Feldman, who contributed the dancing title tune and “Joshua” to the session. On three mellifluous standards — particularly a cerebral “Basin Street Blues” and a broken-hearted “I Fall in Love Too Easily” — the pianist plays with an elegant, refined touch, and the kind of rarefied voicings that suggest Ahmad Jamal. Davis responds with some of his most introspective, romantic ballad playing. When Davis returned to New York he finally succeeded in spiriting away a brilliantly gifted 17-year-old drummer from Jackie McLean: Tony Williams. On the title tune you can already hear the difference, as his crisp, driving cymbal beat and jittery, aggressive syncopations propel Davis into the upper reaches of his horn. On “So Near, So Far” the drummer combines with Carter and new pianist Herbie Hancock to expand on a light Afro-Cuban beat with a series of telepathic changes in tempo, texture, and dynamics. Meanwhile, Feldman’s “Joshua” (with its overtones of “So What” and “All Blues”) portends the kind of expressive variations on the basic 4/4 pulse that would become the band’s trademark, as Davis and Coleman ascend into bebop heaven.

Tracklist:
1-01. Miles Davis – Basin Street Blues (2023 Remaster) (10:30)
1-02. Miles Davis – Seven Steps to Heaven (2023 Remaster) (06:25)
1-03. Miles Davis – I Fall In Love Too Easily (2023 Remaster) (06:48)
1-04. Miles Davis – So Near, So Far (2023 Remaster) (07:01)
1-05. Miles Davis – Baby Won’t You Please Come Home (2023 Remaster) (08:27)
1-06. Miles Davis – Joshua (2023 Remaster) (06:59)

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