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

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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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Japanese people they hear my warmin' up and they start screamin'. They can tell it's me.It's my tone on the trumpet, it sounds like I'm speakin'.
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To keep creating you have to be about change.
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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.
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When the band plays fast, you play slow when the band plays slow, you play fast.
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People will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype.
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When we edit the music, I always remember, It's my band. Save me a place to play.
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Tom Jones is funny to me, man. I mean, he really tries to ape Ray Charles and Sammy Davis, you know. He's nice-looking he looks good doing it. I mean, if I was him, I'd do the same thing. If I was only thinking about making money.
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Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
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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.
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They [police] do me like that all the time! What you work for?.
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If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!
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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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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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Do not fear mistakes. There are none.
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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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You ever hear Buddy Miles play the drums? You know, he doesn't vary the tempo at all.
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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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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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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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