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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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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
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Recognizable
Tone
Mines
Mine
Hear
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I usually write from the rhythm section...If a drummer got a funky beat on some things - like a half-shuffle or a shuffle or a backbeat that's even - I can write something.
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I've gotten hernias from drummers when they drop tempo.
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Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it.
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If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!
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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.
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There are no wrong notes.
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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.
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To keep creating you have to be about change.
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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.
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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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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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People will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype.
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I know what I've done for music, but don't call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.
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Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!
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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.
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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.
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I never thought that the music called jazz was ever meant to reach just a small group of people, or become a museum thing locked under glass like all the other dead things that were once considered artistic.
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Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
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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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The only reason to write a new song is because you're tired of the old ones.
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