Best 134 quotes of Miles Davis on MyQuotes

The melody is French. But that's the end of the record. I named it "Jean Pierre Then There Were None," you know, because of the big explosion. You'll like it. It's a nice album.

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 jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.

The music speaks for itself!

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

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

The reason [drummers] call things "unison", and they sound unison, is because you actually play two different tempos . . . like you're a little sharp, or a little flat; it's so slight that they call it "unison", but it's not unison.

The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.

The way you change and help music is by tryin' to invent new ways to play

Tom Jones is funny to me, man. I mean, he really tries to ape Ray Charles and Sammy Davis, you know. He's nice-looking; he looks good doing it. I mean, if I was him, I'd do the same thing. If I was only thinking about making money.

Trane was the perfect saxophonist for Monk's music because of the space that Monk always used. Trane could fill up all that space with all them chords and sounds he was playing then.

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.

When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads

When I went in there, we used drum machine on "Time After Time" and "Human Nature".We don't use the drum machine to play a pattern. You play the pattern by being consistent.

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.

When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.

When we edit the music, I always remember, "It's my band. Save me a place to play.

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.

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

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.

You can dominate a game if you dominate on the line... We're just going to have to go out there and work hard and blow people off the ball, and let our runners do what they do best.

You can't eat a winner's plaque.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

You want to know how I started playing trumpet? My father bought me one, and I studied the trumpet. And everybody I heard that I liked, I picked up things from.

I always listen to what I can leave out.

If you understood everything I said, you’d be me

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

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?

My future starts when I wake up every morning. Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

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.