Quote

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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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
Always
Guy
Words
Makes
Back
Swinging
Music
Foot
Feel
Anybody
Feels
Feet
Good
Asks

More quotes by Miles Davis

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John Lee Hooker is the funkiest man alive
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Dave [Holland] plays the way he wants to play. And it's usually what's needed. You know, Dave is such a deep thinker. You can't tell him too much, else it might spoil his spirit, you know.
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If you don't know what to play, play nothing.
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Lionel [Richie] said, Yeah, I learned chords and stuff playin' against your albums.
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In music, silence is more important than sound.
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I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.
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Drummers - sometimes they play and they listen. And that little listen takes a speck away from the right tempo.
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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.
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If I hear a song like Time After Time. I'm sittin' there lookin' at video and Cindy Lauper comes on singin' this song. I said, God damnnnnn!
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I couldn't do What's Love Got To Do With It, Tina Turner because it wasn't the right tempo so I scratched it from the record. I wanted to do it about a year ago, but something happened.
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In respect for drummers, see, I love drummers.
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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.
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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 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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Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!
Miles Davis
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My ego only needs a good rhythm section
Miles Davis
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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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You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.
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The reason [drummers] call things unison, and they sound unison, is because you actually play two different tempos . . . like you're a little sharp, or a little flat it's so slight that they call it unison, but it's not unison.
Miles Davis