Seven Steps to Heaven
Studio album by Miles Davis
Released	July 15, 1963[1]
Recorded	April 16–May 14, 1963
Studio	Columbia Studios,Hollywood Columbia 30th Street Studio,New York City
Genre	Jazz
Length	46:08
Label	Columbia
Producer	Teo Macero
Miles Davis chronology
Someday My Prince Will Come (1961) Seven Steps to Heaven (1963) Quiet Nights (1963)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
DownBeat (Original release)	[3]
DownBeat (1992)	[4]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[5]
MusicHound Jazz	[6]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz	[7]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[8]

Seven Steps to Heaven is a studio album by Americanjazz musicianMiles Davis, released on July 15, 1963, byColumbia Records.^[1] The recording sessions took place atColumbia Studios inLos Angeles on April 16 and 17, 1963, and at Columbia's30th Street Studios inManhattan on May 14, 1963. The album presents theMiles Davis Quintet in transition, with the New York session introducing the rhythm section ofHerbie Hancock,Ron Carter andTony Williams, who would become Davis' regular sidemen for the next five years. Upon release, the album was Davis' most successful on theBillboard pop LPs chart up to that point, peaking at number 62.

After the unfinished sessions forQuiet 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.^[9][10] Faced with diminishing returns, by late 1962 his entire band quit,Hank Mobley to a solo career, and therhythm section ofWynton Kelly,Paul Chambers, andJimmy Cobb to work as a unit.^[11] 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 onalto saxophone andHarold Mabern onpiano, withGeorge Coleman andRon Carter arriving early in the year.^[12] For shows on theWest Coast in March, Davis added drummerFrank Butler,^[13] but when it came time for the sessions, Davis jettisoned Strozier and Mabern in favor of pianistVictor Feldman.^[14] With a lucrative career as asession musician, Feldman declined Davis's offer to join the group, and both he and Butler were left behind inCalifornia.^[15] Back in New York, Davis located the musicians who would be with him for the next six years,Herbie Hancock andTony Williams; with Carter and Coleman, the newMiles Davis Quintet was in place.^[15] Williams, then only 17 years old, had been working withJackie McLean, and Hancock had already scored ahit single with "Watermelon Man", recorded by percussionistMongo Santamaria.^[16]

The assembled group at the Aprilrecording sessions finished enough material for an entire album, but Davis decided the uptempo numbers were not acceptable, and rerecorded all of them with the new group during the May sessions in New York.^[17] Two of the ballad tunes recorded in Los Angeles were old – "Baby Won't You Please Come Home", written in 1919 and a hit forBessie Smith in 1923, while "Basin Street Blues" had been introduced byLouis Armstrong in 1928.^[18] Neither features Coleman; both are quartet performances with Davis and the rhythm section.

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

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

• Sides one and two were combined as tracks 1–6 on CD reissues.

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

• Miles Davis –trumpet
• George Coleman –tenor saxophone
• Victor Feldman –piano
• Ron Carter –bass
• Frank Butler –drums

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

• Miles Davis – trumpet
• George Coleman – tenor saxophone
• Herbie Hancock – piano
• Ron Carter –bass
• Tony Williams –drums^[19]

• 1963 albums
• Miles Davis albums
• Albums produced by Teo Macero
• Columbia Records albums
• Albums recorded at CBS 30th Street Studio

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