For me, music and life are all about style.
MILES DAVISAmericans 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.
More Miles Davis Quotes
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My ego only needs a good rhythm section.
MILES DAVIS -
Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.
MILES DAVIS -
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.
MILES DAVIS -
White folks always think that you have to have a label on everything – you know what I mean?
MILES DAVIS -
We’re not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got ’em, so they can keep ’em.
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 -
If you’re not nervous then you’re not paying attention.
MILES DAVIS -
Drummers – sometimes they play and they listen. And that little listen takes a speck away from the right tempo.
MILES DAVIS -
I don’t care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can swing.
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 -
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 -
Always look ahead, but never look back.
MILES DAVIS -
Always listen for what you can leave out.
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