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

More quotes by Miles Davis

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I keep telling Ron Lorman and them in the control room, It's my band! The reason I have a band is because I can't stand for somebody to tell me what to do.
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In respect for drummers, see, I love drummers.
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Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery
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Always listen for what you can leave out.
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.
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Everybody ought to listen to Benny [Carter]. He's a whole musical education.
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 really liked Wynton when I first met him. He's still a nice young man, only confused.
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.
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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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When kids don't learn about their own heritage in school, they just don't care about school... But you won't see it in the history books unless we get the power to write our own history and tell our story ourselves.
Miles Davis
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Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
Miles Davis
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There are no wrong notes.
Miles Davis
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You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.
Miles Davis
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John Lee Hooker is the funkiest man alive
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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If you got up on the bandstand at Minton's and couldn't play, you were not only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you or booing you, you might get your ass kicked.
Miles Davis
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If you don't know what to play, play nothing.
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
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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