- This original black print 360 Stereo label pressing was doing most everything right, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
- The Demo Disc sound throughout these sides is rich, full, sweet, tonally right on the money, and lively as can be
- Columbia jazz records from this period are some of the best sounding jazz records ever made, and this is a perfect example of what is right with their recordings
- When you drop the needle at the beginning of side one and hear Miles’s muted trumpet come jumping out of your speakers, we guarantee you will be amazed or your money back
- 4 1/2 stars: “Seven Steps to Heaven finds Miles Davis standing yet again on the fault line between stylistic epochs.”
This is an interesting album: half of it is recorded in Hollywood and half of it in New York, with the songs in each location interspersed on the sides. Victor Feldman handles the piano duties in California; Herbie Hancock in New York. I actually prefer Victor Feldman’s playing on this record. We don’t get to hear his piano work often — he’s really quite good. (Cal Tjader started out on the drums but it’s tough to find records with him drumming.)
The Question Before the House
One of the thoughts that occurred to me when I was playing this record is this: Why is there no audiophile reissue on any label that sounds like this? There’s something about the sound of these old records, these original pressings, that’s impossible to recapture with modern equipment. It may not be impossible, but until somebody manages to do it, it might as well be.
If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.
(more…)
