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

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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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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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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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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Music is the framework around the silence.
Miles Davis
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We're not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got 'em, so they can keep 'em.
Miles Davis
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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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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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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
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Catch Harry Belafonte. He's got a helluva rhythm section.And so have the Pointer Sisters. And that little guy with Sammy Clayton. He plays the whole show with 40 members.
Miles Davis
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Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!
Miles Davis
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People will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype.
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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Do not fear mistakes. There are none.
Miles Davis
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Americans don't like any form of art, man. All they like to do is make money. They don't like me, Sammy Davis, or anybody else. They don't like nothing. They just like Sammy because he can make 'em a lot of money.
Miles Davis
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Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.
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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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
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There are no wrong notes.
Miles Davis
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I really liked Wynton when I first met him. He's still a nice young man, only confused.
Miles Davis