Miles Davis- May 2, 1988 Melbourne Concert Hall, Melbourne | UPGRADE: Better sound

FM radio broadcast from Miles' only Australian tour, now in improved sound quality

May 2, 1988
Melbourne Concert Hall, Melbourne, Australia

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

introduction 0:00
In a Silent Way (J. Zawinul) 0:43 /
Intruder (M. Davis) 1:46
New Blues [Star People] (M. Davis) 6:54
Perfect Way (G. Gartside-D. Gamson) 14:56
The Senate (J. McCreary) 19:34 /
Me and You (J. McCreary) 24:38
station announcement 29:52
Human Nature (S. Porcaro-J. Bettis) 30:04
Wrinkle (A.Z. Giles-R. Hall-W. Linsey) 43:48
Tutu (M. Miller) 48:41
station announcement 1:02:04
Movie Star [incomplete] (Prince) 1:02:54
Splatch (M. Miller) 1:06:46
Time After Time (C. Lauper-R. Hyman) 1:16:13
Heavy Metal (M. Davis) 1:25:03
Don't Stop Me Now (S. Lukather-D. Porcaro) 1:39:28
Carnival Time [incomplete] (N. Larsen) 1:48:35
Tomaas (M. Davis-M. Miller) 2:06:47
Miles introduces the musicians 2:20:48
Burn (R. Irving III-R. Hall) 2:23:10
Portia (M. Miller) 2:26:53
end titles 2:35:20

Concert recording, broadcast on ABC-FM radio's Jazz Track

In April of 1988, Miles and the band played a number of dates in the US, including San Francisco, Seattle, San Juan Capistrano, and Los Angeles before embarking on what would be his only tour of Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. There were two dates in Sydney before this gig in Melbourne at the 2,466 seater Concert Hall (now Hamer Hall), which was broadcast on Australian radio.

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. The newest recruit was bassist Benny Rietveld. Born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, he was raised on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. By 1983 he had moved to San Francisco and the following year joined the band of percussionist and vocalist Sheila E., while she was touring the music written and produced for her by Prince. He joined Miles for the US dates the month before this gig. At the same time, percussionist Marilyn Mazur rejoined the band after a two year break. These 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.

The setlist is a typical one for the era- pieces from the then two year old Tutu album, the cover tunes from You're Under Arrest, the Toto written Don't Stop Me Now, a few funk jams including one contributed by Prince, and a blues. Miles plays well, and the band is a well oiled machine.

I posted a version of this show back in 2016, taken from a grey market CD, On The Crest Of The Airwaves (Rock Melon Music, 2011). The music on that CD was taken from the radio broadcast, which had presented the concert split into two parts. While the first part (about an hour) sounded fine the second part (from Movie Star on) had been treated with some kind of gating/ limiting effect which had bled out the lower frequencies and made some quieter passages sound indistinct. Since then I have found a copy of the original ABC-FM broadcast, without this gating effect, which is presented here. I did some remastering to help restore the dynamics even further and we now have the show in very good FM sound (I've also left in a couple of short station announcements which were not on the original post). There are still some brief sections missing- the taper seems not to have caught the first bars of both Movie Star and Time After Time while some of Carnival Time is omitted- I'm not sure if this is as a result of clumsy editing on the broadcast or a tape flip by the taper- but it's very nearly the complete show.

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