If you have to ask, you’ll never know.
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?
More Miles Davis Quotes
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A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I’m still doing it.
MILES DAVIS -
The only reason to write a new song is because you’re tired of the old ones.
MILES DAVIS -
That was my gift having the ability to put certain guys together that would create a chemistry and then letting them go; letting them play what they knew, and above it.
MILES DAVIS -
If you don’t know what to play, play nothing.
MILES DAVIS -
I don’t care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can swing.
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 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 -
When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.
MILES DAVIS -
Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it.
MILES DAVIS -
Don’t be afraid of mistakes – There are none.
MILES DAVIS -
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.
MILES DAVIS -
A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.
MILES DAVIS -
I think every Negro over fifty should get a medal for putting up with all that 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.
MILES DAVIS -
First you imitate, then you innovate.
MILES DAVIS






