[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
MILES DAVISLook, man, all I am is a trumpet player.
More Miles Davis Quotes
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Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is.
MILES DAVIS -
Certain drummers drop time, and I like to play on top of the beat.
MILES DAVIS -
There are no wrong notes.
MILES DAVIS -
Don’t be afraid of mistakes – There are none.
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 -
Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.
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 -
To keep creating you have to be about change.
MILES DAVIS -
Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.
MILES DAVIS -
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 -
I think every Negro over fifty should get a medal for putting up with all that crap.
MILES DAVIS -
I’ll play it first and figure out what it’s called later.
MILES DAVIS -
It 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 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 -
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 -
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 -
When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.
MILES DAVIS -
Do not be afraid of errors. There are no errors.
MILES DAVIS -
I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands.
MILES DAVIS -
In other words, an instrument should be an extension of you; it’s supposed to sound like you – the way you walk, the way you dress, you know.
MILES DAVIS -
In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That’s a little bit too much.
MILES DAVIS -
Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!
MILES DAVIS -
If you’re not nervous then you’re not paying attention.
MILES DAVIS -
I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.
MILES DAVIS -
You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.
MILES DAVIS -
It takes you years to learn how to play like yourself.
MILES DAVIS