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First you imitate, then you innovate.

Miles Davis

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
It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.
MILES DAVIS

Musician Notes Play Yourself
When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.
MILES DAVIS

Play Slow Speed Yourself
I think every Negro over fifty should get a medal for putting up with all that crap.
MILES DAVIS

Thinking Tolerance
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

Instrument Music Play Right Wrong Yourself
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

Art Celebrity Form Man Money Musician
If you have to ask, you’ll never know.
MILES DAVIS

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

Ideas Judgement Man Project
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
I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.
MILES DAVIS

Artistic Death Music Pieces
Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. They should stop using that word for selling. I told George Wein the other day that he should stop using it.
MILES DAVIS

Music Myself Sell Word
The only reason to write a new song is because you’re tired of the old ones.
MILES DAVIS

Old Reason Tired Writing Yourself
I used to enjoy all the white bands when I was a kid listening to the radio. But the record companies, they take music and label it – like, they say “rock”. Because the white singers can’t sound like James Brown, they call him “soul”. They’ve been doing that for years. That’s the prejudice crap.
MILES DAVIS

Enjoyment Listening White
To keep creating you have to be about change.
MILES DAVIS

Change Creation Yourself
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

Attitude Negative Vibe Way Woman Yourself
Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?
MILES DAVIS

Feeling Genius One Liner

First you imitate, then you innovate.

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First you imitate, then you innovate.

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