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. 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's 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 rerecorded all