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If you don't know what to play, play nothing.

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
Chess
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More quotes by Miles Davis

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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.
Miles Davis
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He sounded to me like he's supposed to be the savior of jazz. Sometimes people speak as though someone asked them a question. Well, no one asked him a question.
Miles Davis
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You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.
Miles Davis
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If you had to call it unison, it ain't unison. It ain't the same as somebody else. If you can hear that it's unison, and you have to name it something other than unison, it ain't unison, you know what I mean? It's two guys playin', but one guy is playin' slightly out of tune, one is playin' slightly off meter.
Miles Davis
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Jazz musicians are so comfortable. The reason they can't do what we do is because they're so comfortable doin' what they do.
Miles Davis
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Bebop didn't have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn't even have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging — but they weren't sweet.
Miles Davis
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All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal.
Miles Davis
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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.
Miles Davis
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I really liked Wynton when I first met him. He's still a nice young man, only confused.
Miles Davis
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My ego only needs a good rhythm section
Miles Davis
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Catch Harry Belafonte. He's got a helluva rhythm section.And so have the Pointer Sisters. And that little guy with Sammy Clayton. He plays the whole show with 40 members.
Miles Davis
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In high school I was best in music class on the trumpet, but the prizes went to the boys with blue eyes. I made up my mind to outdo anybody white on my horn.
Miles Davis
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Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery
Miles Davis
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Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!
Miles Davis
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Maybe you play a melody twice. You play it once like you like it, and some parts that you don't like you can just switch. An eight-bar motive - you can just take it and put it in the front or back or something like that. It can save you 50 or 60 or 70,000 dollars, a drum machine. That's why everybody uses it.
Miles Davis
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In respect for drummers, see, I love drummers.
Miles Davis
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Food makes my mind sluggish.
Miles Davis
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Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
Miles Davis
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Sometimes, if you ask people to go downstairs and get me this or that, they'll say, It's rainin or It might rain, or There's some bumpy roads on the road, or bla-bla-bla. They give you all those excuses, so when they do something which is easy, you're supposed to say, Damn, you did that?
Miles Davis
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In improvisation, there are no mistakes.
Miles Davis