You can’t play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn’t played.
MILES DAVISI 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.
More Miles Davis Quotes
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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 -
Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery.
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First you imitate, then you innovate.
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If you’re not nervous then you’re not paying attention.
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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 -
Drummers – sometimes they play and they listen. And that little listen takes a speck away from the right tempo.
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You can tell whether a person plays well or not by the way he carries the instrument, whether it means something to him or not.
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The way you change and help music is by tryin’ to invent new ways to play.
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 -
You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.
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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 -
In music, silence is more important than sound.
MILES DAVIS -
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 -
Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
MILES DAVIS -
The only reason to write a new song is because you’re tired of the old ones.
MILES DAVIS






