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
Section
Sections
Ego
Rhythm
Needs
Good

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There are no wrong notes.
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[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
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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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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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I'm not messing around with nobody's woman. If I want a woman I go get her - you know what I mean?
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Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.
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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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When you work with great musicians, they are always a part of you . . . their spirits are walking around in me, so they're still here and passing it on to others.
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Do not fear mistakes. There are none.
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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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Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery
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Sometimes [playing free] doesn't happen, because maybe a guy's wife'll come in, you know, and his ego will catch him. If everybody's completely just straight-without any old ladies over here, a fourth of whisky over there if it's balanced right, it'll come off. It has to be. But when you get egos involved with playing free, you can't do it.
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Some of [drummers] drop time because they want to hear what you're doin'.
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I used to enjoy all the white bands when I was a kid listening to the radio. But the record companies, they take music and label it - like, they say rock. Because the white singers can't sound like James Brown, they call him soul. They've been doing that for years. That's the prejudice crap.
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Lionel [Richie] said, Yeah, I learned chords and stuff playin' against your albums.
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Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
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In respect for drummers, see, I love drummers.
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What's swinging in words? If a guy makes you pat your foot and if you feel it down your back, you don't have to ask anybody if that's good music or not. You can always feel it.
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That's the way women do. The frown. They want to give you the attitude to approach them back, by giving you a negative vibe.
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