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In improvisation, there are no mistakes.

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
Improvisation
Mistakes
Mistake
Music

More quotes by Miles Davis

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If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!
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 gave the album [You're Under Arrest] to Quincy Jones and he loved D Train. We couldn't call it D Train it's called MDI/Something's On Your Mind/MD2. That's on the album.
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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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He sounded to me like he's supposed to be the savior of jazz. Sometimes people speak as though someone asked them a question. Well, no one asked him a question.
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There are no wrong notes.
Miles Davis
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When kids don't learn about their own heritage in school, they just don't care about school... But you won't see it in the history books unless we get the power to write our own history and tell our story ourselves.
Miles Davis
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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.
Miles Davis
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Lionel [Richie] said, Yeah, I learned chords and stuff playin' against your albums.
Miles Davis
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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.
Miles Davis
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Food makes my mind sluggish.
Miles Davis
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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.
Miles Davis
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You can't play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn't played
Miles Davis
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People will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype.
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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I can tell. I'm gifted with that, you know. When I hear that the tempo is slightly off, it's hard for me.
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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Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?
Miles Davis
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The only reason to write a new song is because you're tired of the old ones.
Miles Davis
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You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.
Miles Davis