Always listen for what you can leave out.
MILES DAVISBebop 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.
More Miles Davis Quotes
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Music is an addiction.
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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.
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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 don’t like to hear someone put down dixieland. Those people who say there’s no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don’t know.
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Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
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To keep creating you have to be about change.
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For me, music and life are all about style.
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Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it.
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All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal.
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I always listen to what I can leave out.
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At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.
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If you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note that you play that determines if it’s good or bad.
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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.
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.
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A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.
MILES DAVIS -
Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.
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With “We Are The World,” I can’t even eat when I watch that on television. If I’m eatin’ some food, I have to put it down. I feel very strongly about that.
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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.
MILES DAVIS -
It’s not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.
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Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. They should stop using that word for selling. I told George Wein the other day that he should stop using it.
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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 -
Play what you know and then play above that
MILES DAVIS -
I like Stan [Getz], because he has so much patience, the way he plays those melodies – other people can’t get nothing out of a song, but he can, which takes a lot of imagination.
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Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!
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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.
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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.
MILES DAVIS