Drummers – sometimes they play and they listen. And that little listen takes a speck away from the right tempo.
MILES DAVISIf 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.
More Miles Davis Quotes
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I don’t pay no attention to what critics say about me, the good or the bad. The toughest critic I got is myself…and I’m too vain to play anything I think is bad.
MILES DAVIS -
Bebop 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.
MILES DAVIS -
It takes a long time to sound like yourself.
MILES DAVIS -
When you work with great musicians, they are always a part of you . . . their spirits are walking around in me, so they’re still here and passing it on to others.
MILES DAVIS -
I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.
MILES DAVIS -
Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery.
MILES DAVIS -
I think every Negro over fifty should get a medal for putting up with all that crap.
MILES DAVIS -
Certain drummers drop time, and I like to play on top of the beat.
MILES DAVIS -
I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.
MILES DAVIS -
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!”
MILES DAVIS -
It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.
MILES DAVIS -
If you have to ask, you’ll never know.
MILES DAVIS -
[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
MILES DAVIS -
In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That’s a little bit too much.
MILES DAVIS -
Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.
MILES DAVIS






