New Years Eve Party December 31. 1987 "Miles 2 Nowhere"
"Paisley Park" Chanhassen

TLM: On New Year’s Eve 1987, you finally got to play on the same stage as Miles, during a Prince benefit event at Paisley Park studios.

Eric Leeds: I always regret one moment. There was just one moment when I wanted to nudge the trumpet player Matt [Blistan, aka Atlanta Bliss] to go into a melody line in "Agharta" and the moment came and went by so quickly that I wasn’t able to grab it. I always regretted that because I really wanted to see the look on Miles’s face! The whole affair lasted for all of five minutes but it was cool.

TLM: Wasn’t Prince perplexed because the band was forgetting all the cues?

Eric Leeds: He gave us one of his hand cues to hit a riff and as I remember it, no one hit the cue, because they were all grooving on what Miles was doing and Prince was kinda taken aback! He yelled “Hey, I’m still the boss up here!”
TLM: I was saying to Alan that it was strange that the concert was never released, although there is a bootleg audio and Video CD, Miles From The Park.

Eric Leeds: The anticipation was a lot stronger than the actual event. It was a very fast funk groove that we were doing and it wasn’t anything that Miles was going to do anything other than just basically do his stick.

TLM: Miles appears on Prince’s song “Sticky Wicked”, along with Prince Chaka Khan. But I gather the song wasn’t written with Miles in mind.

Eric Leeds: When Prince had the track up and Matt Blistan and I did the horn parts I can’t recall Prince making any mention about Miles, although he did say he’d written it for Chaka. Interestingly enough, the title “Sticky Wicked” had been applied to a different song, which was actually the title song of my first album Times Squared. I heard the track and asked Prince if I could work on it for my album and he said yes. And then a couple of weeks later, we were working on this track for Chaka and I asked what the name of it was and he said “Sticky Wicked!” Later on when we were on the road he said “Listen to this.” It was the finished track and Miles was on it. That was the song that got me officially into the Miles Davis discography! It was a much better track and much better utilisation of his horn than on “Can I Play With U?” It was a cool little song.

TLM: There’s a lot of controversy surrounding whether Miles and Prince ever worked together in the studio. In one interview Prince has suggested that they recorded together, but Alan is convinced that they never did.

Eric Leeds: I have to agree with Alan on that. I don’t know what Prince was thinking or whether it was something that Prince said that was taken out of context. But I find it almost impossible to figure out how that could have happened, because Alan was still around running the record company and I was still around, although not a member of Prince’s band, I was working on my own albums at the time. Unless it was somewhere on the road that Prince and Miles met in the studio, but anything they would have done, Alan would have heard and I probably would have heard it too. It would have had to have gone through Alan’s desk. I know of no one else who has made mention of it. So I don’t know what Prince was talking about [TLM note: if Prince or anyone from his organisation would like to clear this up, we’d happily report your comments on this website!].







1.Sign O The Times
2.Play In The Sunshine
3.Little Red Corvette
4.Housequake
5.Girls And Boys
6.Slow Love
7.I Could Never Take The PlaceOf Your Man
8.Shela Drum solo
9.Hot Thing
10.If I Was Your Girlfriend
11.Let's Go Crazy
12.When Doves Cry
13.Purple Rain/Auld Lang Syne
14.1999
15.U Got The Look
16.It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night/Six
17.Miles Davis solo
18.Chain Of Fools/Cold Sweat
19.Interlude/Take The A-Train
20.Funky Man/Alphabet St
/Cold Sweat
/Float Like A Butterfly. Sting
Like A Life
21.It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night

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[Edited 7/2/09 15:27pm]

Prince and Miles... my two favourite artists of all time .

There's plenty of other little Prince/Miles tidbids. Here's a few off the top of my head:

- The Prince-produced track "Can I Play With U?" was originally intended to be included on Miles' critically acclaimed Tutu album, however Prince pulled it at the last minute because he didn't feel it measured up with the quality of the rest of the material.

- Prince wanted Miles and his band to tour with him, however Miles died before it ever became a reality.

- Miles often incorporated Prince covers into his concerts during his final years. "Movie Star" and the unreleased "Penetration" were regulars.

- The repetitious horn-line used in the "America" video was taken from a Chick Corea solo on Miles' Bitches Brew album (I forget exactly which track).

- Miles was interviewed for the Prince: A Musical Portrait documentary where he famously stated that "Prince don't hear Ravel when he wants to make love to his woman... he hears drums 'n shit!" . He also talked about him at length in his autobiography.

- Prince has also name-checked Miles in several of his songs:
"Come On (Remix)" "lovin' this truth like Miles loved Jazz"
"77 Beverly Park" "like a physical 'Kind Of Blue'"
And, of course, the 4 second silent track on Rave Un2 is dedicated to Miles.

- After Miles' death, Prince stated his next album would included a 20min instrumental dedicated to Miles. Although it never surfaced, an unreleased track titled "Letter 4 Miles" is known to exist among collectors.

I have the CD boot of this show, but not the video. Isn't there some kind of problem with a balloon drop after Auld Lang Syne?

squirrelgrease said:

Yes, Prince pulls the string/rope to release the balloons and it does not work. So he runs to the side of the stage and jumps up on one of the speakers and knocks a bunch of balloons off some pole. Prince's mother is also there and hugs Miko from the stage at some point while Prince isn't on stage. It was also interesting to see Prince wearing the black pants with "Prince" up the thigh from the forthcoming Lovesexy tour, also with the "elastic straps?". It is funny because Wally grabs the straps a couple of times when Prince isn't looking and they snap back on his legs. Very cool video!