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If you have to ask, you'll never know.
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
Never
Asks
More quotes by Miles Davis
The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.
Miles Davis
[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
Miles Davis
Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery
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
Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.
Miles Davis
If you don't know what to play, play nothing.
Miles Davis
I don't wanna talk about Teo [Macero]. He's a helluva musician, a brilliant musician, but he's just not for me, that's all. I can elaborate on it, but I don't want to do that.
Miles Davis
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
When we edit the music, I always remember, It's my band. Save me a place to play.
Miles Davis
To keep creating you have to be about change.
Miles Davis
Some of [drummers] drop time because they want to hear what you're doin'.
Miles Davis
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.
Miles Davis
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.
Miles Davis
Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.
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
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
Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.
Miles Davis
People will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype.
Miles Davis
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.
Miles Davis
A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.
Miles Davis
