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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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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
Challenges
Duke
Humanity
Dukes
Didn
Challenging
Great
Weren
Even
Fantastic
Thing
Jazz
Ellington
Bird
Bebop
Sweet
Recognizable

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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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You can't play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn't played
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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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You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.
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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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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.
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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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When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads
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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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I've gotten hernias from drummers when they drop tempo.
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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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Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.
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If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!
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In other words, an instrument should be an extension of you it's supposed to sound like you - the way you walk, the way you dress, you know.
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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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If you have to ask, you'll never know.
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[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
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Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?
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You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.
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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