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When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads

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
Coleman
Ballads
Learned
Heard
Play
Hawkins

More quotes by Miles Davis

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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.
Miles Davis
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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.
Miles Davis
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Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.
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 you understood everything I say, you'd be me!
Miles Davis
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There are no wrong notes.
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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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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I know what I've done for music, but don't call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.
Miles Davis
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My father's rich, my momma's good looking. Right? And I can play the Blues. I've never suffered and don't intend to suffer.
Miles Davis
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Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.
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.
Miles Davis
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You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.
Miles Davis
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I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.
Miles Davis
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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.
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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They [police] do me like that all the time! What you work for?.
Miles Davis
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Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it.
Miles Davis
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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.
Miles Davis
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Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.
Miles Davis