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Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.

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
Street
Musical
Streets
Taught
Anyone
Else
Monk
Music
Composition
Jazz

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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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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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Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about 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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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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I never thought that the music called jazz was ever meant to reach just a small group of people, or become a museum thing locked under glass like all the other dead things that were once considered artistic.
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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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Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery
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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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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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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 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.
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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?
Miles Davis
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Everybody ought to listen to Benny [Carter]. He's a whole musical education.
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You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.
Miles Davis
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If you don't know what to play, play nothing.
Miles Davis
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In improvisation, there are no mistakes.
Miles Davis
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If you got up on the bandstand at Minton's and couldn't play, you were not only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you or booing you, you might get your ass kicked.
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I know what I've done for music, but don't call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.
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Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!
Miles Davis