Seven Steps:
Finding the Right Tenor Man

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Having gotten together a satisfactory group and no doubt feeling invigorated by the inspiring energy of his young rhythm section, Davis proceeds to put this group out on the road. The rest of Disc 2 and all of Disc 3 are from the group’s performance at the Antibes festival in Juan-les-Pins, France, in July of 1963. The group’s repertoire at this point is comprised of material from the Seven Steps sessions and material associated with Davis bands of previous eras. That they manage to imprint their own identity and impression on material like “Milestones” and “Walkin’” is testament to the incredibly strong individual voices of Hancock, Carter, and Williams. Though Davis hadn’t recorded “Autumn Leaves” under his own name, he had performed it on Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else album. Here, he is more pugilistic, weaving around the bass, drum, and piano work, offering playing that is at times lyrical, at time declarative, at times downright forceful. “Milestones” was added back into the band’s book at Tony Williams’ request, and the band plays it at top speed. Again, Davis sounds fresh and inspired in his solo, and Hancock shows that he is a very inventive player, finding new harmonic devices to freshen the warhorse composition. At around 1’ 39” into the performance, Hancock and Williams lock briefly into a rhythmic groove that is somewhat robotic, pushing Davis into a couple of angry glissandos before he explodes into a run, kicking the rhythm section out of its groove and into some deft sparring.

Discs 3 and 4 present, in its entirety, Miles’ February 1964 concert at New York’s Philharmonic Hall in a benefit for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Material from this concert provided two separate Columbia releases, My Funny Valentine and Four and More, but neither of these albums presented the complete set from which they were culled. That has been rectified here, with both sets (one introduced by Mort Feta, the other by Billy Taylor) restored to their correct sequences. The playing here is of the highest quality, though many consider the second set (Disc 5) to be somewhat edgier owing to the fact that Davis announced, during the break between sets, that he was waiving the group’s fee for the concert, a development that wasn’t completely to the liking of his younger bandmates. These concerts also effectively provide the swansong of George Coleman with this group. Tony Williams in particular, was dissatisfied with Coleman’s rather traditional approach, and the rhythm section in general continually seems to try to push the tenor saxophonist out of his comfort zone, while his resistance is, in places, almost palpable.

Davis begins to feel the need to replace George Coleman, wanting a younger, more adventurous saxophonist who will ride the energy of his new rhythm section and be a more explorative member of the band. In addition, Coleman was a polished improviser who worked out elements of his playing in advance rather than relying on where the music was flowing at any particular moment, which Davis did not like.

Upon the recommendation of Williams, Miles hires Sam Rivers, a saxophonist who is greatly influenced by the free jazz movement, taking his cues from the likes of Ornette Coleman and Archie Shepp. Ultimately, he is probably a bit too exploratory for Davis' liking, and after a Japanese tour Rivers is dismissed. There’s been no recorded evidence of Rivers’ brief tenure with the quintet. Disc 6 rectifies that with the U.S. release of Miles In Tokyo, originally released only in Japan in 1969. The performance is a revelation. Here the rhythm section has completely clicked and Davis is in fine form. Rivers is much more willing to go with the band, but his style is distinctly different from Miles or the other musicians in the band. He very seldom engages in bop-style runs and arpeggios, instead playing with an irregular, edgy phrasing that distinguishes him immediately from Coleman, Mobley, or even the young John Coltrane. Rivers is generally dismissed by listeners as not being the “right fit” for the band, but the performance here certainly shows the inaccuracy of that conventional wisdom. It would be more accurate to say that Rivers is not the fit or type of player that Davis heard as complimentary to the ensemble as it stood, but he definitely sounds as though he could have been a solid contributor to the group. He stays within the harmonic structure of the songs here, but still manages to convey an ability to do “outside” playing, and, bolstered by Hancock, Carter, and especially Williams, he provides a real element of excitement that Coleman had not been able to generate. Only a few months after this performance was recorded, Rivers recorded the excellent Blue Note album Fuschia Swing Song with Carter, Williams, and pianist Jaki Byard, so his problem was clearly not one of fitting in with the Davis rhythm section. Nonetheless, upon his return to the States, Davis was looking to hire a new tenor saxophonist for the quintet.

Davis had his eye on Wayne Shorter, who was holding down the position of musical director with Art Blakey. Shorter was a tenor player in the Coltrane mold and also a versatile and interesting composer. Davis knew that he could offer Shorter something that Blakey could not—the chance to stretch out with a rhythm section as complex and modern as Shorter himself and an opportunity to play his compositions with a groundbreaking group. Shorter agreed to join Davis' new quintet, and the group was complete. The new quintet's first outings, all live, feature many of Davis' older standby tunes, but there is a new fire in his playing and the group takes many more risks with them than previously. For starters, the uptempo numbers are taken at faster and faster speeds. While this sometimes seems to hamper Davis' solo playing, the overall effect can be breathtaking. The first recording featuring the complete new quintet is Miles In Berlin, (originally released only in Germany, now heard here in its entirety on Disc 7) recorded at the Berlin Philharmonie and featuring classic Davis numbers. There are no new compositions on the recording, but the rhythm section shows how formidable it is already, complementary yet autonomous, and Shorter is very much in sync not only with the rhythm section, but with Miles himself. Miles is in excellent form, and the uptempo numbers are done at breakneck tempos.

The quintet was finalized, and would enter the studio in 1965 to record E.S.P., following that up with Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles In the Sky, and (partially) Filles de Kilimanjaro. When the group disbanded in mid-1968 they had created one of the most formidable bodies of work in the modern jazz canon. Seven Steps does a great job of chronicling the period leading up to the creation of this amazing group as well as demonstrating that, while the period covered here wasn’t one of Miles’ most innovative periods, it was far from a mere entrenching and repetition of what he had done before. In fact, the movement from the late 50s to the formation of the second great quintet mirrors in many ways the movement from the second quintet to the jazz/rock/funk stew of Davis’ late 1960s/1970s career. Seven Steps is filled with great music and shows jazz music’s master innovator once again finding a way to reinvent himself and his music.