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New Miles box: Seven Steps To Heaven


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Five additional sides (All Blues/Stella By Starlight/Seven Steps to Heaven/If I Were A Bell/So What) from the Antibes-Juan Les Pins concert of July 1963 have already been issued on the bootleg JMY CD 'Cote Blues'. Sound was pretty good.

But the sound on the original official release on French CBS 'Miles A Antibes' was better than the sound of the US original release 'Miles Davis in Europe'. Hope the new box will have the better sound and will even improve on that.

The concert includes some of the better George Coleman playing ever!

I have just got the JMY Cote Blues CD and was puzzled to hear the first tune as So What rather than All Blues as stated. The last tune is also So What again but a different version. Everywhere I look, All Blues is stated as the first track. Timing given is right, just the name of the tune wrong. Have I got a rogue copy or is this a mistake nobody has noticed?

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  • 1 month later...
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Just received this box set sealed as advertised from an e-Bay auction. Winning bid was $61.09 (add $5 for shipping) for this $130 list price box so I'm happy. Just for curiosity's sake, I just now looked to see if anybody else is auctioning this set at e-Bay and damn, the same seller has another listing for this same box set going on. Wonder where he's getting all these sets from. In any event, bidding is now up to $47 with a day or so to go. If anyone's also interested in copping this, here's the link.

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Maybe he's getting them from yourmusic.com for 35 dollas (or 42 dollars if he's a 5.99 member) and making a few dollars on ebay!

Can't get anything past you, Lon. Of course I had no idea that the option you detail exists. I'll be damned! Well, I'm still a happy camper, but how can an item that Sony Columbia lists for $130 go for such few dollars from an online service? I'm afraid I'll never understand the economics of the recording wholesale/retail biz.

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  • 2 years later...

So I picked this up a while back from yourmusic and am finally starting to make my way through it. I was initially planning to get the individual albums, but realized that some of those were incomplete compared to the box.

I've heard Seven Steps to Heaven and the February 1964 concert on earlier issues. The other three albums are new to me, though I've heard unofficial recordings from throughout this period so I imagine I won't be surprised too much.

So far I've made it through disc 1 and part of disc 2. Seven Steps is one of the most underrated Miles albums! I think Miles's judgment on re-recording the fast-paced tunes with Herbie, Ron and Tony was definitely vindicated. The west coast versions are alright, but the east coast versions blow them away. With all due respect to Victor Feldman and Frank Butler, they aren't Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams.

"Joshua" and "Seven Steps to Heaven" are fantastic tunes. It's too bad that Miles dropped them from live sets after 1964.

Interesting that Miles didn't let George Coleman play on the ballads on this album. Kind of harks back to his philosophy with Coltrane in the mid 50s.

Guy

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Ghost of Miles did a radio show about Miles & Sam Rivers that has some performances from that version of the quintet that aren't in the box set, which I just listened to a couple weeks ago. An interesting supplement to the box set. The radio show is archived, and definitely worth a listen.

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I put off buying this set for a long time because it seemed like a mish-mash of lesser Miles (for the period). As it turns out, this is the Miles box I probably reach for the most now (and I have them all). This definitely exceeded my expectations more than any other box I've bought in the past year or so.

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  • 1 year later...

I finally got around to picking up a single CD from material in this box ('Four and more'). Good gracious, it smokes! :o Tony Williams is a beast. I'm wondering now if it might be worth considering springing for the entire box, or instead continue to just cherry pick the single CDs.

davis_miles_fourmorer_101b.jpg

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Sounds as though the box is definitely worth pursuing! I'll be looking out for good deals, I regret missing some of the bargains others found for this box (mentioned earlier in the thread, when BMG was still carrying sony stuff)

Yeah, I missed out on this one at the time (I tried to get it multiple times when Yourmusic was carrying it but it was always out of stock)...I found a used copy later though. It's one of those sets that's very rewarding from a historical perspective as the band members change and the group continues to morph into the "beast" it would become.

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In general I am not a big box set fan. However, this one may be worth picking up (despite the high price tag) due to the fact that two of the live tracks (one from the Antibes concert, and one from the Feb 1964 concert) are only available on the box.

The packaging, as usual, is annoying. Jewel cases exist for a reason...

Guy

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