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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

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
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
My father’s rich, my momma’s good looking. Right? And I can play the Blues. I’ve never suffered and don’t intend to suffer.
MILES DAVIS

Father Myself Play Suffering
In music, silence is more important than sound.
MILES DAVIS

Important Music Silence Sound
I like Stan [Getz], because he has so much patience, the way he plays those melodies – other people can’t get nothing out of a song, but he can, which takes a lot of imagination.
MILES DAVIS

Imagination Myself Patience People Play
Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.
MILES DAVIS

Music Play
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
We don’t play to be seen. I’m addicted to music, not audiences.
MILES DAVIS

Addiction Audience Music Myself Play Seen
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
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
It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.
MILES DAVIS

Musician Notes Play Yourself
I’ve always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that’s where great art and music happens.
MILES DAVIS

Art Greatness Music Play
Food makes my mind sluggish.
MILES DAVIS

Food Mindset Myself
The way you change and help music is by tryin’ to invent new ways to play.
MILES DAVIS

Change Help Music Play Way
When kids don’t learn about their own heritage in school, they just don’t care about school… But you won’t see it in the history books unless we get the power to write our own history and tell our story ourselves.
MILES DAVIS

Children Heritage History Learning Ourselves Story
Music is an addiction.
MILES DAVIS

Addiction Music One Liner
I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning… Every day I find something creative to do with my life.
MILES DAVIS

Creation Finding Future Life Myself Start Thinking
Certain drummers drop time, and I like to play on top of the beat.
MILES DAVIS

Musician Myself Play Time
You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.
MILES DAVIS

Love Music Myself Play Quit
In improvisation, there are no mistakes.
MILES DAVIS

Improvisation Mistake Spontaneous
It’s not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.
MILES DAVIS

Change Creation Safety Stand Yourself
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

Kill Live Man Myself Slow White
There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.
MILES DAVIS

Note Place Wrong
People will go for anything they don’t understand if it’s got enough hype.
MILES DAVIS

Enough Hype People Understand
You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.
MILES DAVIS

Comfortable Musician Ruin Yourself
You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.
MILES DAVIS

Instrument Music Play Right Yourself
When you work with great musicians, they are always a part of you . . . their spirits are walking around in me, so they’re still here and passing it on to others.
MILES DAVIS

Greatness Musician Spirit Walk Work 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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Miles Davis Quotes