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 DAVISI think the greatest sound in the world is the human voice.
More Miles Davis Quotes
-
-
A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.
MILES DAVIS -
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.
MILES DAVIS -
I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.
MILES DAVIS -
My father’s rich, my momma’s good looking. Right? And I can play the Blues. I’ve never suffered and don’t intend to suffer.
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 -
You can’t play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn’t played.
MILES DAVIS -
Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.
MILES DAVIS -
You have to practice for a long time before you can learn to sound like yourself.
MILES DAVIS -
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 -
If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow.
MILES DAVIS -
Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?
MILES DAVIS -
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 -
I don’t care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can swing.
MILES DAVIS -
I’ve always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that’s where great art and music happens.
MILES DAVIS -
I always listen to what I can leave out.
MILES DAVIS