Quote

Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.

Miles Davis

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Miles Davis
Age: 65 †
Born: 1926
Born: May 26
Died: 1991
Died: September 28
Actor
Autobiographer
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Film Score Composer
Jazz Musician
Musician
Recording Artist
Songwriter
Television Actor
Alton
Illinois
Miles Dewey Davis III
Miles Dewey Davis
III Davis
Note
Plays
Notes
Anybody
Percent
Attitude
Play
Motherfucker

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A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.
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Dave [Holland] plays the way he wants to play. And it's usually what's needed. You know, Dave is such a deep thinker. You can't tell him too much, else it might spoil his spirit, you know.
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I don't wanna talk about Teo [Macero]. He's a helluva musician, a brilliant musician, but he's just not for me, that's all. I can elaborate on it, but I don't want to do that.
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If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.
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My ego only needs a good rhythm section
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Do not fear mistakes. There are none.
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That's the way you judge a car, man, [good or bad], when you start it up. It's just the same thing. I mean, I drive a Ferrari - not to be cute, but because I dig it. I'd rather drive a ten-year-old Ferrari than one of them new things-they don't go.
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The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.
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I put all those synthesizer sounds behind Decoy and Code M.D. A lot of things we write together. A lot of things are his, but they don't have that thing I want on the bottom. I often tell him, I say, Bobby [Irving], if there's a melody, there's another one somewhere that goes with it.
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I can't write anything for myself. I can write when I hear like [John] Coltrane play something I used to write chords and stuff for him to play in one bar. I can write for other people, but I don't never write for myself.
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Everybody ought to listen to Benny [Carter]. He's a whole musical education.
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The reason [drummers] call things unison, and they sound unison, is because you actually play two different tempos . . . like you're a little sharp, or a little flat it's so slight that they call it unison, but it's not unison.
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I said to [Lionel] Richie, Man, my wife says you must really respect women because you write such beautiful love songs.
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Lionel [Richie] said, Yeah, I learned chords and stuff playin' against your albums.
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Somebody, my daughter or my wife, gave me a music box for Christmas. It plays My Funny Valentine on celeste, you know? So I had Bobby [Irving] just play Jean Pierre with the changes on celeste.
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Always listen for what you can leave out.
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The only reason to write a new song is because you're tired of the old ones.
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To keep creating you have to be about change.
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If you have a tone like mine that is recognizable. No matter what I play, when you hear my tone you can tell it's me.
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Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?
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