Miles Davis Quotes

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

I remember one time - it might have been a couple times - at the Fillmore East in 1970, I was opening for this sorry-ass cat named Steve Miller. Steve Miller didn't have his shit going for him, so I'm pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfucker just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and then we got there we smoked the motherfucking place, everybody dug it. ~ Miles Davis

It was Miles Davis who took me to New York, and Coltrane was in the band, as well as Paul Chambers, Philly Jo Jones. 'Trane took me aside, and, of course, we did Blue Trane, which was my first album-and that started everything. He had confidence that I didn't have; he saw something that I didn't see. ~ Curtis Fuller

Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player. ~ Miles Davis

Music gives me a lot of peace, either classic music with its structure or the spontaneity of Miles Davis. It brings the best in you. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei

Jazz music is as American as it gets, and so is the U.S. Postal Service. A Miles Davis stamp is a perfect marriage of two great American institutions. ~ Henry Rollins

I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician. ~ Miles Davis

I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up in the morning and see the light. ~ 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

Coltrane, you cant play everything at once! ~ 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

[Miles Davis] learned from everyone. He was incredible. He took the best from everyone and threw away the rest. He was brilliant. One of the things he told me he loved about my voice was how I used space-both in music and between my voice and the mike. ~ Helen Merrill

I'm a fiend when it comes to good pastry, and the French make the best as far as I'm concerned. ~ Miles Davis

I think that cheap music often does make you dream more than more serious music, whether that's serious music by Beethoven or Miles Davis or Pink Floyd ... if the Floyd ever did serious music, which I seriously doubt. ~ Jonathan Meades

I love nineties stuff like Alice in Chains and Nine Inch Nails. It'd be my dream to have a Radiohead-themed episode of 'Glee.' I also love jazz greats like Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock. ~ Mark Salling

Always listen for what you can leave out. ~ Miles Davis

My ego only needs a good rhythm section ~ Miles Davis

Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, Paul Chambers, Bill Evans, and Jimmy Cobb playing "All Blues," a moody, blues form piece in 6/8, off the 1959 album Kind of Blue. ~ Blake Crouch

Miles Davis would have this lineup of all these amazing musicians and one day would just say, 'We're done.' After tons of great records and tickets sold, he said, 'Now I'm going to grow my hair out and play my horn through a wah-wah pedal.' Rather than play it safe, he went on. ~ Henry Rollins

A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear. ~ Miles Davis

Don't play what's there; play what's not there. ~ Miles Davis

You can't eat a winner's plaque. ~ Miles Davis

Being rebellious and black, a nonconformist, being cool and hip and angry and sophisticated and ultra clean, whatever else you want to call it -- I was all those things and more. But I was playing the fuck out of my horn and had a great group, so I didn't get recognition based only on a rebel image. ~ Miles Davis

Music is an addiction. ~ Miles Davis

I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I've never got there ... I'm always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though, trying to always feel it in and through the music I play everyday. ~ Miles Davis

I don't care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can swing. ~ Miles Davis

Food makes my mind sluggish. ~ Miles Davis

The very first thing I remember in my early childhood is a flame, a blue flame jumping off a gas stove somebody lit... I remember being shocked by the whoosh of the blue flame jumping off the burner, the suddenness of it... I saw that flame and felt that hotness of it close to my face. I felt fear, real fear, for the first time in my life. But I remember it also like some kind of adventure, some kind of weird joy, too. I guess that experience took me someplace in my head I hadn't been before... The fear I had was almost like an invitation, a challenge to go forward into something I knew nothing about. That's where I think my personal philosophy of life and my commitment to everything I believe in started... In my mind I have always believed and thought since then that my motion had to be forward, away from the heat of that flame. ~ Miles Davis

His performance was also intensely visual, with his volatile movements in front of the piano, and his cries and wild vocal accompaniment to his playing, all of which spoke eloquently of his extraordinary passion for the instrument and the music he coaxed, tickled and sometimes pounded out of him. Many critics were put off by all this, thinking it was a mere outward show- and therefore insincere. In fact it is an essential part of music-making for Jarrett, his way of achieving his state of grace… the ecstasy of inspiration. Miles Davis understood that immediately, and so did most other musicians. Jack DeJohonette says: "The one thing that struck me about Keith, that made him stand out from other players, was that he really has a love affair with the piano, it's a relationship with that instrument… Keith's hands are actually quire small but because of that he can do things that a person like myself, or other pianists with normal hand spans, can't do… it enables him to overlap certain chord sequences and do rhythmic things and contrapuntal lines and get these effects of like, four people playing the piano… But I've never seen anybody just have such a rapport with their instrument and know its limitations but also push them to the limits, transcend the instrument – which is what I try and do with the drums as well. ~ Ian Carr

The only person I have regrets about is Miles Davis. He and I had become good friends after we did a photo shoot, and coincidentally, we kept running into each other at parties and stuff. I regret not having written a hit for Miles Davis. ~ Nile Rodgers

Well, I've heard a lot of people, but I think I would say a Brazilian musician named Hermeto Pascoal was one of my biggest influences. Through the years he mastered the keyboards. He use to play the organ Hammond B3, flute, saxophone, percussion and guitar. He is one of the most complete musicians that I ever met. Not too long after we came to the United States, Airto Moreira introduced him to Miles Davis, who recorded three of Hermeto's compositions on his album Live Evil. ~ Flora Purim

If you understood everything I said, you'd be me ~ Miles Davis

The Ozarks are a fixture in my mindscape, but I didn't stay local in every respect. I always think of Miles Davis, "People who don't change end up like folk musicians playing in museums, local as a motherfucker." I wouldn't describe my attachment to home as ghostly, but long-distanced. My ear has been licked by many other tongues. ~ C.D. Wright

Everybody ought to listen to Benny [Carter]. He's a whole musical education. ~ Miles Davis

My playing started to develop through the Miles Davis stuff I was listening to. ~ Robert Quine

Always look ahead, but never look back. ~ Miles Davis

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

When the golden rabbit had safely emerged out of the forbidden passage, he pondered the direction back to his lair. "How can it be I don't live where I used to live anymore? How can that be? Alright then….alright. What a strange dream…I feel as though I've been eaves dropping in tempo…but not in time!" The hare hopped off, humming passages from Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue". ~ Kevin Moccia

Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it. ~ Miles Davis

It's like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of shit is that, but white people's shit? ~ Miles Davis

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

I gave up language for a while, and I started painting.And then I only listened to Miles Davis and other instrumental music to see how it felt to be without words. ~ Rosanne Cash

I got a chance to work with Miles Davis, and that changed everything for me, 'cause Miles really encouraged all his musicians to reach beyond what they know, go into unknown territory and explore. It's made a difference to me and the decisions that I've made over the years about how to approach a project in this music. ~ Herbie Hancock

With a lot of the music I really love, like Miles Davis, you can go back and see the processes and the stages. ~ Kieran Hebden

What's swinging in words? If a guy makes you pat your foot and if you feel it down your back, you don't have to ask anybody if that's good music or not. You can always feel it. ~ Miles Davis

If you're not nervous then you're not paying attention. ~ Miles Davis

White folks always think that you have to have a label on everything - you know what I mean? ~ Miles Davis

It was clear just how much Tommy loved the city. New York City. The CKY Grocery on Amsterdam had giant, bright red Spartan apples every day of the year, even if it wasn't the right season. He loved that grocery, and the old, shaky Persian man who owned it. Tommy emphatically, yet erroneously believed that the CKY Grocery was the genuine heart of the great city. All five boroughs embodied distinct feelings for him, but there was only one that he'd ever truly romanticized. To him, Manhattan was the entire world.

He loved everything between the East River and the Hudson; from the Financial District up to Harlem; from Avenue A to Zabar's. He loved the four
seasons, although autumn was easily the most anticipated. To Tommy, Central Park's bright, almost copper hues in the fall were the epitome of orange. He loved the unique perfume of deli meats and subway steam. He loved the rain with such verve that every time it so much as drizzled, he would turn to the sky so he could feel the drops sprinkle onto his teeth. Because every raindrop that hit him had already experienced that much envied journey from the tips of the skyscrapers all the way down to the cracked and foot-stamped sidewalks. He believed every inch of the city had its own predetermined genre of music that suited it to a tee. The modal jazz of Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter was absolutely meant for the Upper East Side, north of 61st Street. Precisely between Gershwin and gospel. He loved the view from his a ~ Ryan Tim Morris

I think every Negro over fifty should get a medal for putting up with all that crap. ~ Miles Davis

Miles Davis was a master. In every phase of his career, he understood that this music was a tribute to the African muse. ~ Cassandra Wilson

When you're creating your own shit, man, even the sky ain't the limit. ~ Miles Davis

If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad. ~ Miles Davis

To keep creating you have to be about change. ~ Miles Davis

You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians. ~ Miles Davis

I ran a few miles, Davis, and they were musical. Then I made love like the sound of a trumpet, as heard by Helen Keller. ~ Jarod Kintz

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 don't question it. ~ Miles Davis

I look at people like Picasso and Da Vinci and Escher and Miles Davis, and they'll write or paint that one definitive masterpiece of maybe 50 that they have that's really trying to go outside the box, trying to do something that's tough. And then when you accomplish it, you look back and go, 'Yeeaaaah - masterpiece.' ~ Lupe Fiasco

You have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself. ~ Miles Davis

Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one. ~ Miles Davis

Time isn't the main thing. It's the only thing. ~ Miles Davis

I'll play it first and figure out what it's called later. ~ Miles Davis

Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent. ~ Miles Davis

It's called 'Miles Davis, Prince of Darkness,' and it's about Miles Davis, the genius, and why he was the way he was, and how he changed music so many times. He changed music six times. So, I'm excited about that movie. ~ George Tillman, Jr.

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

I used to be friends with Miles Davis. He didn't like many folks. I lived across the street from him. ~ Rip Torn

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 the new thing so they don't look unhip. White people are especially like that, particularly when a black person is doing something they don't understand ... That's what I thought was happening when Ornette hit town. ~ 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 am a leader. Leaders always get heat. They're always going against the grain. Jimi Hendrix got heat; Bob Marley got heat; Miles Davis got heat. Every great artist got heat. Heat means you're doing something right. ~ Ziggy Marley

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

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

There are two rules for success...
1. Never reveal everything you know. ~ Ylond 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

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

Coltrane was moving out of jazz into something else. And certainly Miles Davis was doing the same thing. ~ Jan Garbarek

If you got up on the bandstand at Minton's and couldn't play, you were not only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you or booing you, you might get your ass kicked. ~ Miles Davis

I was minding my own business when something says to me, "you ought to blow trumpet." I have just been trying ever since. ~ Miles Davis

One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else. ~ Branford Marsalis

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

When you're 8 years old, and you've become subconsciously familiar with the layout and design of Black Sparrow books, and you know the difference between Miles Davis and John Coltrane, something is bound to stick. ~ Patrick DeWitt

But you've got to have style in whatever you do -- writing, music, painting, fashion, boxing, anything. ~ Miles Davis

I believe, from reading biographies, that the great musicians have also been great cooks: Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach. I think I've worked out why this is - unsociable hours, plus general creativity. ~ Jamie Cullum

In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That's a little bit too much. ~ Miles Davis

There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places. ~ Miles Davis

The thing in jazz that will get Bix Beiderbecke out of his bed at two o'clock in the morning, pick that cornet up and practice into the pillow for another two or three hours, or that would make Louis Armstrong travel around the world for fifty plus years non stop, just get up out of his sick bed, crawl up on the bandstand and play, the thing that would make Duke Ellington, the thing that would make Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Mary Lou Williams, the thing that would make all of these people give their lives for this, and they did give their lives, is that it gives us a glimpse into what America is going to be when it becomes itself. And this music tells you that it will become itself. And when you get a taste of that, there's just nothing else you're going to taste that's as sweet. ~ Wynton Marsalis

I would never try and play like Harry James, because I don't like his tone - for me. It's just white. You know what I mean? He has what we black trumpet players call a white sound. But it's for white music ... I can tell a white trumpet player, just listening to a record. There'll be something he'll do that'll let me know that he's white. ~ Miles Davis

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

In music, silence is more important than sound. ~ Miles Davis

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

Birth of the Cool' became a collector's item, I think, out of a reaction to Bird and Dizzy's music. Bird and Diz played this hip, real fast thing, and if you weren't a fast listener, you couldn't catch the humor or the feeling in their music. Their musical sound wasn't sweet, and it didn't have harmonic lines that you could easily hum out on the street with your girlfriend trying to get over with a kiss. ~ Miles Davis

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

The thing is, all my heroes were junkies. Lenny Bruce, Keith Richards, William Burroughs, Miles Davis, Hubert Selby, Jr ... These guys were cool. They were committed. They would not have been caught dead doing an ALF episode. ~ Jerry Stahl

It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change. ~ Miles Davis

I don't hold it against Dizzy [Gillespie], you know, but if a guy wants to play a certain way, you work towards that. If he stops - he's full of crap, you know. I mean, I wouldn't do it, for no money, or for no place in the white man's world. Not just to make money, because then you don't have anything. You don't have as much money as whoever you're trying to ape; that's making money by being commercial. Then you don't have anything to give the world; so you're not important. You might as well be dead. ~ Miles Davis

Miles Davis was a part of my life from 1947 on. I was born in 1941 and I first heard him in 1947 on a 78 rpm. And then I followed his career, starting with his first solo album in 1951. He was an icon and inspiration and a mentor to me. ~ Chick Corea

After we became a couple, she composed our time together. She planned days as if they were artistic events. One afternoon we went to Tybee Island for a picnic; we ate blueberries and drank champagne tinted with curacao and listened to Miles Davis, and when I asked the name of her perfume, she said it was L'Heure Bleue.
She talked about 'perfect moments.' One such moment happened that afternoon; she'd been napping; I lay next to her, reading. She said, 'I'll always remember the sounds of the sea and of pages turning, and the smell of L'Heure Bleue. For me they signify love. ~ Susan Hubbard

I'm thankful enough or blessed enough to be able to say that Miles Davis was a friend when he was alive, and he was a wonderful mentor and really, really funny, you know. ~ Prince

Audiences - they like colour, you know. I can go out there wearing a red suit, man, and they'll say I'm out of sight ... I think they should be educated; you should always drop something on an audience ... When you get in front of an audience, you should try to give 'em something. After all, they're there looking at you like this. You can't go out and give 'em nothing. ~ Miles Davis

It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play. ~ Miles Davis

It takes you years to learn how to play like yourself. ~ Miles Davis

I believe in knowing all you can about the music and the people who made the music. I think it's much more important to know some good Miles Davis stories than to know how to play like Miles. I think you'll play better if you know some of the funny things he did than if you know the licks that he played. ~ Sonny Sharrock