Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
MILES DAVISSometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
MILES DAVISJazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!
MILES DAVISIf you love them in the morning with their eyes full of crust; if you love them at night with their hair full of rollers, chances are, you’re in love.
MILES DAVISAnybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.
MILES DAVISFirst you imitate, then you innovate.
MILES DAVIS[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
MILES DAVISWhite folks always think that you have to have a label on everything – you know what I mean?
MILES DAVISThe way you change and help music is by tryin’ to invent new ways to play.
MILES DAVISIt took me twenty years study and practice to work up to what I wanted to play in this performance. How can she expect to listen five minutes and understand it?
MILES DAVISYou can dominate a game if you dominate on the line… We’re just going to have to go out there and work hard and blow people off the ball, and let our runners do what they do best.
MILES DAVISYou can’t eat a winner’s plaque.
MILES DAVISI 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 DAVISAmericans 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 DAVISMusic is an addiction.
MILES DAVISA legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I’m still doing it.
MILES DAVISYou should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.
MILES DAVIS