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Song Quotes by Miles Davis

40 Song quotes by Miles Davis

All Song quotes Miles Davis’s page

Miles Davis describes music as a framework that holds silence. He talks about playing a melody, changing parts that don’t feel right, and how jazz evolves away from dense chords. He also mentions the importance of gratitude toward legends like Duke Ellington.

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In respect for drummers, see, I love drummers.

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Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!

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In music, silence is more important than sound.

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The music speaks for itself!

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Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!

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Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is.

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When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads

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Music is the framework around the silence.

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You ever hear Buddy Miles play the drums? You know, he doesn't vary the tempo at all.

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Drummers - sometimes they play and they listen. And that little listen takes a speck away from the right tempo.

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Some of [drummers] drop time because they want to hear what you're doin'.

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Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.

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I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.

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Certain drummers drop time, and I like to play on top of the beat.

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Lionel [Richie] said, "Yeah, I learned chords and stuff playin' against your albums."

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[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.

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In high school I was best in music class on the trumpet, but the prizes went to the boys with blue eyes.…

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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…

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Jimi Hendrix came from the blues, like me. We understood each other right away because of that. He was a great blues…

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Bebop didn't have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn't have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging --…

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It's like swimmin' without warmin' up, yuo know what I mean? So [cackles] we use the drum machine, and we take it…

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Trane was the perfect saxophonist for Monk's music because of the space that Monk always used. Trane could fill up all that…

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I said to [Lionel] Richie, "Man, my wife says you must really respect women because you write such beautiful love songs."

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At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks too Duke Ellington.

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I did Bronislaw Kaper's tune. He wrote "On Green Dolphin Street." I mean, I did all those ballads, all them ballads from…

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Maybe you play a melody twice. You play it once like you like it, and some parts that you don't like you…

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I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but…

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The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords. I can't play them...I think a movement in…

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I would never try and play like Harry James, because I don't like his tone - for me. It's just white. You…

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The reason [drummers] call things "unison", and they sound unison, is because you actually play two different tempos . . . like…

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

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The only reason to write a new song is because you're tired of the old ones.

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Jazz musicians are so comfortable. The reason they can't do what we do is because they're so comfortable doin' what they do.

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The music I was really listening to in 1968 was James Brown, the great guitar player Jimi Hendrix, and a new group...…

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Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. They should stop using that word for selling. I told George Wein the other day that…

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I like Stan [Getz], because he has so much patience, the way he plays those melodies - other people can't get nothing…

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It's always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don't know where it comes from, it's just…

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When I went in there, we used drum machine on "Time After Time" and "Human Nature".We don't use the drum machine to…

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You have to be born with it. You can't even buy it. If you could buy it, they'd have it at the…

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He sounded to me like he's supposed to be the savior of jazz. Sometimes people speak as though someone asked them a…

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More by Miles Davis

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…

Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.

You have to practice for a long time before you can learn to sound like yourself

There are no wrong notes.

Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery

I began to realize that some of the things Ornette Coleman had said about things being played three or fours ways, independently of each…

...people will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype. They want to be hip, want always to be in on…

If you're trying to be hip, be hip.

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.

I'm out there doing the best that I can, My lip is cut and I'm still playing.

When I'm playing, I'm never through. It's unfinished. I like to find a place to leave for someone else to finish it. That's where…

[Prince] could very well be the Duke Ellington of Rock 'n' Roll.

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands.

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

You can't compete with Sweets' sound and time feel. It's impossible.