Miles Davis- July 11, 1988 | Liederhalle, Stuttgart

Great sounding audio of highlights from 1988 festival appearance

July 11, 1988
Jazz Gipfel
Liederhalle, Stuttgart, the former West Germany

MILES DAVIS
Miles Davis- trumpet, additional keyboards (-1)
Kenny Garrett- alto saxophone (-2), flute (-3)
Robert Irving III- keyboards
Adam Holzman- keyboards
Joe 'Foley' McCreary- piccolo bass
Benny Rietveld- bass guitar
Ricky Wellman- drums
Marilyn Mazur- percussion

New Blues [Star People] [incomplete] (M. Davis) 00:00 -1, 2
Me and You [incomplete] (J. McCreary) 06:59 -1, 2
Human Nature (S. Porcaro-J. Bettis) 11:58 -1, 2, 3
Wrinkle (A.Z. Giles-R. Hall-W. Linsey) 24:01 -1, 2
Tutu (M. Miller) 30:58 -1, 3
Time After Time (C. Lauper-R. Hyman) 41:34 -3
end titles 50:23

Broadcast by SWR-tv, Jazzmasters

1988 was a busy year for Miles and the band. In April they played a number of dates along the US west coast, before embarking on what would be Davis' only tour of Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. After a few weeks rest there were dates in the east of the US and Canada before setting off on the now customary summer tour of Europe's jazz festivals.

The core of the band were settled in by this point- Garrett, Foley and Wellman had now been playing with Miles over a year, while keyboardists Irving and Holzman joined in 1983 and 1985 respectively. Early in 1988 Miles recruited bassist Benny Rietveld who had been playing with percussionist and vocalist Sheila E. At the same time, percussionist Marilyn Mazur rejoined the band after a two year break. These European dates would be among longtime keyboardist Bobby Irving's final ones with the band- when they undertook a tour in the autumn that year his position had been filled by the teenage Joey DeFrancesco.

This recording is the audio from televised highlights at Stuttgart's Liederhalle. The band played for about 93 minutes that evening, this tape includes a little over half of that. There was also an SDR radio broadcast that included a further half hour of material but I have not been able to track this down.

The recording opens near the start of what was traditionally the second piece of the evening in Miles's comeback years, the slow blues New Blues (released by Columbia as the title track of Star People, in 1983). Next we hear only the second part of a medley of Foley compositions, Me and You (The Senate has been edited out). This is largely a feature for new bassist Benny Rietveld, who quotes Prince's Controversy and German singer Nena's Neunundneunzig Luftballons (aka 99 Red Balloons). Michael Jackson's Toto-written ballad Human Nature had by now picked up its extended coda vamp that became a feature for Garrett's impassioned alto saxophone. Wrinkle dates back to the (then) unreleased Rubber Band sessions of late 1985, a furious funk workout based on a Mike Stern guitar riff from Star People's Star On Cicely. Tutu was the title track from Miles's now two year old Warner Bros debut, and features Mazur in an extended percussion showcase, culminating in her dancing across the stage with bells attached to her ankles, accompanying her own talking drum solo. A version of Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time closes things out.

The band is a well oiled machine by this point, Miles plays well and there are fine spots for the featured soloists. The audio is very good, well recorded and decently mixed. There is a little digital artifacting noticeable in the high end but it shouldn't be too distracting. As noted, a couple of tracks are incomplete as a result of editing and there was a small gap in the intro to Human Nature, which I have patched with audio from an alternate, inferior source. I gave the audio a little re-EQing and adjusted the running speed slightly. This is another good late eighties show, even if it is incomplete, and the superior sound makes it an enjoyable listen.