Quote

My ego only needs a good rhythm section

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
Rhythm
Needs
Good
Section
Sections
Ego

More quotes by Miles Davis

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We're not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got 'em, so they can keep 'em.
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I began to realize that some of the things Ornette Coleman had said about things being played three or fours ways, independently of each other, were true because Bach had also composed that way.
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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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You can tell whether a person plays well or not by the way he carries the instrument, whether it means something to him or not.
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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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I usually write from the rhythm section...If a drummer got a funky beat on some things - like a half-shuffle or a shuffle or a backbeat that's even - I can write something.
Miles Davis
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Trane was the perfect saxophonist for Monk's music because of the space that Monk always used. Trane could fill up all that space with all them chords and sounds he was playing then.
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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?
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It's like swimmin' without warmin' up, yuo know what I mean? So [cackles] we use the drum machine, and we take it out.
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As long as I've been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.
Miles Davis
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Food makes my mind sluggish.
Miles Davis
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If you don't know what to play, play nothing.
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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If I hear a song like Time After Time. I'm sittin' there lookin' at video and Cindy Lauper comes on singin' this song. I said, God damnnnnn!
Miles Davis
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Always listen for what you can leave out.
Miles Davis
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If you got up on the bandstand at Minton's and couldn't play, you were not only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you or booing you, you might get your ass kicked.
Miles Davis
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I've gotten hernias from drummers when they drop tempo.
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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I would never try and play like Harry James, because I don't like his tone - for me. It's just white. You know what I mean? He has what we black trumpet players call a white sound. But it's for white music ... I can tell a white trumpet player, just listening to a record. There'll be something he'll do that'll let me know that he's white.
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I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.
Miles Davis