In 1955, Miles decided to leave Prestige for the larger and better known Columbia recording company, but he still owed Prestige 4 albums in order to fulfill his contract terms. So on May 11, 1956, and again on Oct. 26, 1956, he and his quintet, which included John Coltrane, went into the Van Gelder studios and layed down a long string of titles which went into the 4 albums; these albums were COOKIN', RELAXIN', WORKIN', and STEAMIN'. Sides from both sessions were intermixed on each album.