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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
Jazz
Street
Musical
Streets
Taught
Anyone
Else
Monk
Music
Composition

More quotes by 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.
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I put all those synthesizer sounds behind Decoy and Code M.D. A lot of things we write together. A lot of things are his, but they don't have that thing I want on the bottom. I often tell him, I say, Bobby [Irving], if there's a melody, there's another one somewhere that goes with it.
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I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I've never got there. . . . I'm always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though, trying to always feel it in and through the music I play everyday.
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A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.
Miles Davis
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Maybe you play a melody twice. You play it once like you like it, and some parts that you don't like you can just switch. An eight-bar motive - you can just take it and put it in the front or back or something like that. It can save you 50 or 60 or 70,000 dollars, a drum machine. That's why everybody uses it.
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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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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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Americans don't like any form of art, man. All they like to do is make money. They don't like me, Sammy Davis, or anybody else. They don't like nothing. They just like Sammy because he can make 'em a lot of money.
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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In respect for drummers, see, I love drummers.
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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Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!
Miles Davis
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If you have a tone like mine that is recognizable. No matter what I play, when you hear my tone you can tell it's me.
Miles Davis
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I used to enjoy all the white bands when I was a kid listening to the radio. But the record companies, they take music and label it - like, they say rock. Because the white singers can't sound like James Brown, they call him soul. They've been doing that for years. That's the prejudice crap.
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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.
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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Always look ahead, but never look back.
Miles Davis
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If you have to ask, you'll never know.
Miles Davis
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When we edit the music, I always remember, It's my band. Save me a place to play.
Miles Davis
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Some of [drummers] drop time because they want to hear what you're doin'.
Miles Davis