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Always listen for what you can leave out.

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
Listen
Leave
Always

More quotes by Miles Davis

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I know what I've done for music, but don't call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.
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The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.
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They [police] do me like that all the time! What you work for?.
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Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery
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In improvisation, there are no mistakes.
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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.
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Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?
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When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads
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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 hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.
Miles Davis
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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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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.
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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.
Miles Davis
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As long as I've been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.
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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I gave the album [You're Under Arrest] to Quincy Jones and he loved D Train. We couldn't call it D Train it's called MDI/Something's On Your Mind/MD2. That's on the album.
Miles Davis
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Drummers - sometimes they play and they listen. And that little listen takes a speck away from the right tempo.
Miles Davis
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My ego only needs a good rhythm section
Miles Davis
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I can tell. I'm gifted with that, you know. When I hear that the tempo is slightly off, it's hard for me.
Miles Davis
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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.
Miles Davis