Miles Davis - Merci, Miles! Live At Vienne

2021 release

Miles Davis performed with the Miles Davis Group on July 1, 1991, at the Jazz à Vienne festival in France. Sadly, it was one of his last concerts before passing away on September 28 of that year.

Davis’ electrifying performance at Jazz à Vienne includes two songs – “Penetration” and “Jailbait” – that were written by Prince, with whom he had a mutual admiration and friendship. MERCI MILES! LIVE AT VIENNE will be released on June 25 as a two-CD set and as a double LP.  The collection features liner notes by music historian, journalist, and producer Ashley Kahn, along with art designed by Bruno Tilley.

By 1991, the world’s most celebrated trumpeter could look back on five decades of musical evolution – his own and that of the world around him. Davis had found ways to marry jazz with classical ideas, then later R&B, rock, and funk, to produce hybrid offspring that shaped the course of popular music and had come to define his legend. In 1985, he’d left Columbia after 30 years to sign to Warner Bros. Records (now Warner Records), a label riding high with best-selling artists like Madonna, Van Halen, and Prince.

Miles Davis’s lifelong love for France is well-documented, and in July 1991, he became a Knight of its Legion of Honour. Davis accepted the award from French culture minister Jack Lang, who described him as: “The Picasso of Jazz.” A few days before, he played the exhilarating concert captured on MERCI MILES! at Jazz à Vienne with the Miles Davis Group. He passed away soon after, in September.


2. Human Nature
3. Time after Time
4. Penetration
5. Wrinkle
6. Amandla
7. Jailbait
8. Untitled finale