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You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

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

Art Man Sacrifice Trust Woman Yourself
When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.
MILES DAVIS

Play Slow Speed Yourself
I’m not messing around with nobody’s woman. If I want a woman I go get her – you know what I mean?
MILES DAVIS

Known Myself Woman
Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?
MILES DAVIS

Feeling Genius One Liner
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
White folks always think that you have to have a label on everything – you know what I mean?
MILES DAVIS

Known Label Thinking 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
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 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
You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.
MILES DAVIS

Love Music Myself Play Quit
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
Some musicians play with their heart, you know what I mean? I don’t know what to tell a person that can’t – if you can’t tell a person what you’re talkin’ about when they’re rushin’ or droppin’ the tempo, you get somebody else.
MILES DAVIS

Heart Known Musician Person Play Yourself
There are no wrong notes.
MILES DAVIS

Music Notes One Liner Wrong
We don’t play to be seen. I’m addicted to music, not audiences.
MILES DAVIS

Addiction Audience Music Myself Play Seen
Certain drummers drop time, and I like to play on top of the beat.
MILES DAVIS

Musician Myself Play Time
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

Goodness Music Myself Time Video
The way you change and help music is by tryin’ to invent new ways to play.
MILES DAVIS

Change Help Music Play Way
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

Artistic Music People Reach Thinking
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
If you’re going to drop behind, you have to keep it there.
MILES DAVIS

Behind Yourself
Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is.
MILES DAVIS

Goodness Music
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
Always look ahead, but never look back.
MILES DAVIS

Forward Future Past See
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
You can’t play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn’t played.
MILES DAVIS

Horn Instrument Play Yourself
In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That’s a little bit too much.
MILES DAVIS

Acceptance Mistake 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

You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

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You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

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