Quote

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

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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
Something
John
Never
Hear
Like
Write
People
Stuff
Used
Anything
Coltrane
Play
Chords
Writing
Bars

More quotes by 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.
Miles Davis
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Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!
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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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 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
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Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.
Miles Davis
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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.
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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Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it.
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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My ego only needs a good rhythm section
Miles Davis
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Food makes my mind sluggish.
Miles Davis
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[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
Miles Davis
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Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.
Miles Davis
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I've gotten hernias from drummers when they drop tempo.
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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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.
Miles Davis
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Lionel [Richie] said, Yeah, I learned chords and stuff playin' against your albums.
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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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