Miles Davis Quotes

93 quotes in 859 categories

• Music is the framework around the silence.
• 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 there and I…
• A lot of people ask me where music is going today. I think it's going in short phrases. If you listen, anybody with an ear…
• For me, music and life are all about style.
• 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.
• If you don't know what to play, play nothing.
• Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it.
• My ego only needs a good rhythm section
• It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play.
• Bebop didn't have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn't have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging -- but that weren't…
• When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads
• I don't pay no attention to what critics say about me, the good or the bad. The toughest critic I got is myself...and I'm too…
• 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…
• In improvisation, there are no mistakes.
• If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.
• That was my gift . . . having the ability to put certain guys together that would create a chemistry and then letting them go;…
• 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.
• All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal.
• Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.
• You have to be born with it. You can't even buy it. If you could buy it, they'd have it at the next Newport Festival.

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