In August 1989, German photographer and documentary filmmaker Ralph Quinke and Swiss journalist Marco Meier spent three days in Malibu shadowing Miles Davis for the Swiss cultural periodical Du. Published to commemorate the centenary of Davis’s birth in 2026, Miles Davis—Three Days in Malibu reopens that encounter, gathering Quinke’s photographic work made between 1971 and 1989 into a concentrated, 160-page hardcover volume.

The core of the book rests on the 1989 California reportage, wherein Quinke captures Davis away from the conventional performance stage. Davis is seen in intimate domestic routines—boxing, sitting behind the wheel of his car, working in the kitchen, painting, and interacting mid-conversation—alternating between deliberate self-presentation and quiet, unguarded observation. To complement the 1989 series, the publication incorporates an archival selection of Quinke’s earlier photographs of Davis spanning 1971 through 1987.

Instigated by music journalist Arne Reimer, this expanded presentation revives and reconfigures material from the long-out-of-print Du issue No. 843. It pairs the visual archive with a revised version of the original 1989 interview alongside a newly conducted dialogue involving Quinke, Meier, and Reimer, establishing an essential documentary record of Davis in the final years of his life.