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Some musicians play with their heart, you know what I mean? I don't know what to tell a person that can't - if you can't tell a person what you're talkin' about when they're rushin' or droppin' the tempo, you get somebody else.

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
Person
Talkin
Play
Tempo
Mean
Musicians
Heart
Musician
Somebody
Tell
Else
Persons

More quotes by Miles Davis

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Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery
Miles Davis
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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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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!
Miles Davis
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When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads
Miles Davis
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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
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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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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
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In music, silence is more important than sound.
Miles Davis
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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.
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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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 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
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Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?
Miles Davis
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The only way a drum machine will get out of beat is for you not to pay your electric bill.
Miles Davis
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A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.
Miles Davis
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In improvisation, there are no mistakes.
Miles Davis
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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.
Miles Davis
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You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.
Miles Davis
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If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!
Miles Davis
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When the band plays fast, you play slow when the band plays slow, you play fast.
Miles Davis