There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.
MILES DAVISI 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.
More Miles Davis Quotes
-
-
At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.
MILES DAVIS -
Always listen for what you can leave out.
MILES DAVIS -
It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.
MILES DAVIS -
Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.
MILES DAVIS -
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.
MILES DAVIS -
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.
MILES DAVIS -
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 -
The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.
MILES DAVIS -
A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.
MILES DAVIS -
First you imitate, then you innovate.
MILES DAVIS -
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 -
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.
MILES DAVIS -
I’m not messing around with nobody’s woman. If I want a woman I go get her – you know what I mean?
MILES DAVIS -
Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery.
MILES DAVIS -
[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
MILES DAVIS