The Prince estate shared the full 1987 benefit show from Paisley Park alongside the release of a “super deluxe” edition of Sign O’ The Times.
Prince and Miles Davis‘ mythical link-up has officiialy been freed of its grail bootleg status.
As a companion to the release of a deluxe edition of Sign O’ The Times, the late icon’s estate has relinquished the full two-hour-plus set from New Years Eve 1987, featuring an ice-cold appearance from the jazz pioneer on trumpet at the tail-end of the performance.
The show was filmed at Paisley Park as a benefit for The Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless. It capped not just the year, but also the tour supporting Sign O’ The Times, which was strictly a cross-pond affair with no US dates whatsoever. A concert film for Sign O’ The Times was filmed in Australia and widely-circulated stateside, but this show marks the final performance of the album material, saving the curtain call for an exclusive set at The Purple One’s compound. The full footage from the performance premiered on Friday with an hour-long introduction from seasoned Prince scholar, Maya Rudolph. It wrangled members of the band for a discussion of the 1987 album and a particularly isolated era of Prince’s career following the disbanding of The Revolution.
The “super deluxe” edition of Sign O’ The Times dropped Friday on all DSPs, featuring a mountain of previously-unreleased songs and edits (65 in all,) including Prince and Miles’ lone studio collaboration, “Can I Play With U?,” and the full remastered audio from a 1987 show in Utrecht, Netherlands.
Watch the full performance below and scroll on for Maya Rudolph’s pre-show warm-up, featuring appearances from Susannah Melvoin, Eric Leeds, and Matt Fink. Head over to the official Prince store to grab the super deluxe edition of Sign O’ The Times as a whopping 13xLP box-set with a DVD of this legendary onstage meeting.