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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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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
Keep
Play
Going
Ems
Blues
Folks
Anymore
Jazz
White

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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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Some of [drummers] drop time because they want to hear what you're doin'.
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I can't write anything for myself. I can write when I hear like [John] Coltrane play something I used to write chords and stuff for him to play in one bar. I can write for other people, but I don't never write for myself.
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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.
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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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The only reason to write a new song is because you're tired of the old ones.
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Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.
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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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In music, silence is more important than sound.
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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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To keep creating you have to be about change.
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I keep telling Ron Lorman and them in the control room, It's my band! The reason I have a band is because I can't stand for somebody to tell me what to do.
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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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Tom Jones is funny to me, man. I mean, he really tries to ape Ray Charles and Sammy Davis, you know. He's nice-looking he looks good doing it. I mean, if I was him, I'd do the same thing. If I was only thinking about making money.
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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.
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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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Lionel [Richie] said, Yeah, I learned chords and stuff playin' against your albums.
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You ever hear Buddy Miles play the drums? You know, he doesn't vary the tempo at all.
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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.
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If you don't know what to play, play nothing.
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