In improvisation, there are no mistakes.
MILES DAVISSome 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.
More Miles Davis Quotes
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In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That’s a little bit too much.
MILES DAVIS -
Always look ahead, but never look back.
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 -
A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I’m still doing it.
MILES DAVIS -
Music is the framework around the silence.
MILES DAVIS -
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 -
I always listen to what I can leave out.
MILES DAVIS -
If you’re not nervous then you’re not paying attention.
MILES DAVIS -
It takes you years to learn how to play like yourself.
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 -
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 -
I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning… Every day I find something creative to do with my life.
MILES DAVIS -
There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.
MILES DAVIS -
Play what you know and then play above that
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






