Late period gig, remastered from German TV audio
July 30, 1990
Jazz Port '90
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg,
the former West Germany
MILES DAVIS
Miles Davis- trumpet, keyboards
Kenny Garrett- alto saxophone, flute
Joe 'Foley' McCreary- piccolo bass, vocals
Kei Akagi- keyboards
Richard Patterson- bass guitar, vocals
Ricky Wellman- drums
Erin Davis- electronic percussion
Perfect Way [incomplete] (Green Gartside-David Gamson) 00:00
New Blues [Star People] (Miles Davis) 05:20
Hannibal (Marcus Miller) 14:21
The Senate (Joe McCreary) 27:21/
Me And You (Joe McCreary) 34:24
In the Night (Larry Blackmon-Merve DePeyer) 40:22
Human Nature (Steve Porcaro-John Bettis) 43:59
Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper-Rob Hyman) 57:02
Wrinkle (Attala Zane Giles-Randy Hall-Wayne Linsey) 1:05:43
Tutu (Marcus Miller) 1:14:46
Don't Stop Me Now (Steve Lukather-David Paich) 1:26:52
Carnival Time (Neil Larsen) 1:39:13
closing titles 1:53:54
NDR TV broadcast
Here's a late period Miles gig, originally broadcast by German TV, in remastered audio.
Davis was in the final phase of his career- his last gig would be a year and a month after this- but the band was kept busy throughout 1990 and Miles himself was usually playing strongly, although there is a sense that he was preserving his strength on many of these dates. The talented Akagi had joined the band in the spring of 1989, Patterson would become bassist a year later. Miles's son Erin joined the band in June, playing electronic percussion, replacing John Bigham.
This appearance was an outdoor concert held in the grounds of the Hamburger Kunsthalle art gallery, overlooking the Port of Hamburg, on a summer evening as the sun went down and was broadcast by NDR TV (this date usually circulates with the venue identified as Kunstinsel which, as far as I can ascertain, is a different venue- can anyone clarify?). This audio comes from a bootleg CD, _Live von der Kunstinsel in Hamburg_ (Electric Blue [Japan]), apparently taken from the TV broadcast. The sound is a very good mono recording, with some high frequency TV buzz. Only Miles's dissonant, sustained keyboards are too loud in the mix, uncomfortably so during Hannibal, but other than that it's very listenable. The bootleg CD did have some strange variations in volume, sometimes from one track to the next, sometimes during a single track. I did some work to even out the volume across the whole recording and it now has more consistant sound; I also boosted some frequencies to help restore the dynamics.
The band is as well drilled as usual, with great spots for Garrett, Wellman, Foley and Akagi, Patterson is a perfect fit as the new bassist, although Erin's electronic percussion pads are as clunky sounding as Bigham's had been before him. The setlist is exactly the same as the Montreux gig ten days earlier (https://youtu.be/ET11uCBi6-0 ), including a rare performance of In the Night, a tune Miles and Garrett had recorded with the great funk/ disco band Cameo, then enjoying their greatest period of popularity- Foley and Patterson even sing the vocal chorus, a real rarity on a Miles gig.
Miles sounds in reasonably good form, blowing strongly if not at length. At 2:25 he quotes Concert On The Runway, a tune he recorded in March with Michel Legrand for the soundtrack of Rolf de Heer's movie _Dingo,_ in which he starred as jazz trumpeter Billy Cross. At 22:03 he uses the melodic phrase he played on Fat Time in the early '80s, but which originally surfaced on a Stockholm date from 1960 (https://youtu.be/vwZF6BcFBes?t=45 ), thirty years earlier. There's also an amusing call-and-response between Miles and the audience on Tutu. Perhaps a sign of his diminishing stamina, Miles leaves the stage after Tutu (the TV footage shows him being led out of the venue), and he is not heard on the final two pieces- Don't Stop Me Now's pretty melody is played by Foley with Kenny Garrett and the closing Carnival Time had by now become a lengthy showcase for Wellman.
These were historic times for Germany- the Berlin Wall fell the year before and official demolition had begun the month before this concert. A little over a month after, the Unification Treaty came into effect, reuniting the West with what had been the German Democratic Republic in the East. Miles and the band would revisit the united country in the autumn, playing at least eight more concerts there before the end of the year.
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