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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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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
Ems
Hear
Tell
Someone
Play
People

More quotes by 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.
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Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?
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Bebop didn't have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn't even have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging — but they weren't sweet.
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[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
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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.
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Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.
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The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.
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Drummers - sometimes they play and they listen. And that little listen takes a speck away from the right tempo.
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Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.
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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!
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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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I said to [Lionel] Richie, Man, my wife says you must really respect women because you write such beautiful love songs.
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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.
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Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!
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People will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype.
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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 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.
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Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.
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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.
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Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery
Miles Davis