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

More quotes by Miles Davis

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Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.
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I said to [Lionel] Richie, Man, my wife says you must really respect women because you write such beautiful love songs.
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If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!
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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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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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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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When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads
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Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery
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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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You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.
Miles Davis
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Do not fear mistakes. There are none.
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.
Miles Davis
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In music, silence is more important than sound.
Miles Davis
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You want to know how I started playing trumpet? My father bought me one, and I studied the trumpet. And everybody I heard that I liked, I picked up things from.
Miles Davis
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I usually write from the rhythm section...If a drummer got a funky beat on some things - like a half-shuffle or a shuffle or a backbeat that's even - I can write something.
Miles Davis
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Always look ahead, but never look back.
Miles Davis
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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.
Miles Davis
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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
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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.
Miles Davis
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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.
Miles Davis