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I’m out there doing the best that I can, My lip is cut and I’m still playing.

Miles Davis

The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.
MILES DAVIS

Ideas Judgement Man Project
Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery.
MILES DAVIS

Freedom Ignorance Knowledge Slave
Drummers – sometimes they play and they listen. And that little listen takes a speck away from the right tempo.
MILES DAVIS

Away Listening Music Time
[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
MILES DAVIS

Comfortable Feeling Known
There are no wrong notes.
MILES DAVIS

Music Notes One Liner Wrong
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

Expectation Herself Instrument Musician Performance Practice Time Understand
Music is an addiction.
MILES DAVIS

Addiction Music One Liner
In high school I was best in music class on the trumpet, but the prizes went to the boys with blue eyes. I made up my mind to outdo anybody white on my horn.
MILES DAVIS

Best Discrimination Musician Myself White
It takes you years to learn how to play like yourself.
MILES DAVIS

Learning Play Yourself
I usually write from the rhythm section…If a drummer got a funky beat on some things – like a half-shuffle or a shuffle or a backbeat that’s even – I can write something.
MILES DAVIS

Myself Rhythm Writing
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

Lyrics Music Myself People Play Writing
If you sacrifice your art because of some woman, or some man, or for some color, or for some wealth, you can’t be trusted.
MILES DAVIS

Art Man Sacrifice Trust Woman Yourself
To keep creating you have to be about change.
MILES DAVIS

Change Creation Yourself
If 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 DAVIS

Chance Eyes Hair Love Morning Night Yourself
With “We Are The World,” I can’t even eat when I watch that on television. If I’m eatin’ some food, I have to put it down. I feel very strongly about that.
MILES DAVIS

Eat Feeling Myself Strong Watch World
Jazz musicians are so comfortable. The reason they can’t do what we do is because they’re so comfortable doin’ what they do.
MILES DAVIS

Comfortable Music Reason
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

Instrument Sound Walk Way Yourself
It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.
MILES DAVIS

Musician Notes Play Yourself
Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.
MILES DAVIS

Attitude Character Musician Play
The way you change and help music is by tryin’ to invent new ways to play.
MILES DAVIS

Change Help Music Play Way
I don’t care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can swing.
MILES DAVIS

Appearance Care Himself Myself
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

Challenge Greatness Humanity Recognition Sweet
I think every Negro over fifty should get a medal for putting up with all that crap.
MILES DAVIS

Thinking Tolerance
White folks always think that you have to have a label on everything – you know what I mean?
MILES DAVIS

Known Label Thinking Yourself
I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.
MILES DAVIS

Artistic Death Music Pieces
Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!
MILES DAVIS

Instrument Play Yourself
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

Known Music Myself People Stupidity

I’m out there doing the best that I can, My lip is cut and I’m still playing.

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I’m out there doing the best that I can, My lip is cut and I’m still playing.

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