218 Quotes by Miles Davis

You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.

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

See, if you put a musician in a place where he has to do something different from what he does all the time, then he can do that - but he's got to think differently in order to do it. He's got to play above what he knows - far above it. I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens.

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

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

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.

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.

Dave [Holland] plays the way he wants to play. And it's usually what's needed. You know, Dave is such a deep thinker. You can't tell him too much, else it might spoil his spirit, you know.

To keep creating you have to be about change.