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It took me twenty years study and practice to work up to what I wanted to play in this performance. How can she expect to listen five minutes and understand it?
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
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Jazz
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Twenty
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More quotes by Miles Davis
Music is the framework around the silence.
Miles Davis
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?
Miles Davis
I can hear what I want [people] to play. If you don't hear what you want someone to play, then you can't tell 'em.
Miles Davis
Some musicians play with their heart, you know what I mean? I don't know what to tell a person that can't - if you can't tell a person what you're talkin' about when they're rushin' or droppin' the tempo, you get somebody else.
Miles Davis
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
Do not fear mistakes. There are none.
Miles Davis
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
As long as I've been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.
Miles Davis
If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.
Miles Davis
In improvisation, there are no mistakes.
Miles Davis
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
The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.
Miles Davis
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
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.
Miles Davis
You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.
Miles Davis
Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!
Miles Davis
Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.
Miles Davis
All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal.
Miles Davis
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
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
