1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Miles Davis

Miles Davis Quotes

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.Born in Alton, Illinois and raised in East St. Louis, Davis left to study at the Juilliard School in New York City, before dropping out and making his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker's bebop quintet from 1944 to 1948. Shortly after, he recorded the Birth of the Cool sessions for Capitol Records, which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz. In the early 1950s, Miles Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music while on Prestige Records but did so haphazardly due to a heroin addiction. After a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955, he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records and recorded the 1957 album 'Round About Midnight. It was his first work with saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers, key members of the sextet he led into the early 1960s. During this period, he alternated between orchestral jazz collaborations with arranger Gil Evans, such as the Spanish-influenced Sketches of Spain , and band recordings, such as Milestones and Kind of Blue . The latter recording remains one of the most popular jazz albums of all time, having sold over four million copies in the U.S.

Davis made several line-up changes while recording Someday My Prince Will Come , his 1961 Blackhawk concerts, and Seven Steps to Heaven , another mainstream success that introduced bassist Ron Carter, pianist Herbie Hancock, and drummer Tony Williams. After adding saxophonist Wayne Shorter to his new quintet in 1964, Davis led them on a series of more abstract recordings often composed by the band members, helping pioneer the post-bop genre with albums such as E.S.P and Miles Smiles , before transitioning into his electric period. During the 1970s, he experimented with rock, funk, African rhythms, emerging electronic music technology, and an ever-changing line-up of musicians, including keyboardist Joe Zawinul, drummer Al Foster, and guitarist John McLaughlin. This period, beginning with Davis' 1969 studio album In a Silent Way and concluding with the 1975 concert recording Agharta, was the most controversial in his career, alienating and challenging many in jazz. His million-selling 1970 record Bitches Brew helped spark a resurgence in the genre's commercial popularity with jazz fusion as the decade progressed.After a five-year retirement due to poor health, Davis resumed his career in the 1980s, employing younger musicians and pop sounds on albums such as The Man with the Horn and Tutu . Critics were generally unreceptive but the decade garnered the trumpeter his highest level of commercial recognition. He performed sold-out concerts worldwide while branching out into visual arts, film, and television work, before his death in 1991 from the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia and respiratory failure. In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which recognized him as "one of the key figures in the history of jazz." Rolling Stone described him as "the most revered jazz trumpeter of all time, not to mention one of the most important musicians of the 20th century," while Gerald Early called him inarguably one of the most influential and innovative musicians of that period. Wikipedia  

✵ 26. May 1926 – 28. September 1991
Miles Davis photo
Miles Davis: 30   quotes 23   likes

Famous Miles Davis Quotes

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

Miles Davis

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

Miles Davis

“Do not fear mistakes - there are none.”

Miles Davis

Miles Davis Quotes about music

“Music is an addiction.”

Miles Davis

“For me, music and life are all about style.”

Miles Davis

Miles, the Autobiography (1989) (co-written with Quincy Troupe, p. 398.)
1980s

“The only thing I'm interested in is the music and the musicians. I don't acknowledge applause 'cause I'm giving them something. They're not giving me anything with their applause. Can I write that down?”

Miles Davis

As quoted in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music, p. 40
1970s

“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.”

Miles Davis

About the new modal style. Interviewed by The Jazz Review, 1958; Quotes in Paul Maher, ‎Michael K. Dorr (2009) Miles on Miles: Interviews and Encounters with Miles Davis, p. 18.
1950s

“I love Pops, I love the way he sings, the way he plays - everything he does, except when he says something against modern-jazz music.”

Miles Davis

In Playboy to Alex Haley (1962); also in [Milestones: The music and times of Miles Davis since 1960, Jack, Chambers, Beech Tree Books, 1983, 9780688046460, 209], [The Playboy Interviews, Alex, Haley, Murray, Fisher, Ballantine, 1993, 9780345383006, 15], [The Miles Davis companion: four decades of commentary, Gary, Carner, Gary, Carner, Schirmer Books, 1996, 9780028646121, 19], and in [Miles Davis and American Culture, Missouri Historical Society Press Series, Gerald Lyn, Early, Missouri History Museum, 2001, 9781883982386, 205]
1960s

“I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master, but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience. It happens more and more these days, that unqualified people with executive positions try to tell musicians what is good and what is bad music. It’s tempting for the musician to prejudice his own views when recording opportunities are so infrequent but I for one am determined to resist the temptation.”

Miles Davis

Bill Evans, on about Miles Davis's change of style to jazz fusion.
http://jazztimes.com/articles/20128-miles-davis-and-bill-evans-miles-and-bill-in-black-white.
Quotes by others

Miles Davis Quotes about change

“Miles said he looked on his need for constant change as a curse. However, Miles, along with Duke Ellington, in terms of looking for models of how you strategize with a band, have been there constantly in the background for me. Not the Beatles as a construct for a group, not Led Zeppelin, not the Floyd. My guides have always been Miles and Duke.”

Miles Davis

Robert Fripp, on how Miles Davis influenced his leadership in King Crimson.
As quoted in a Rolling Stone interview "The Crimson King Seeks a New Court" by Hank Shteamer (15 April 2019) https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/robert-fripp-interview-king-crimson-tour-david-bowie-kanye-west-820783/.
Quotes by others

“I've changed music four or five times. What have you done of any importance other than be white?”

Miles Davis

Miles, the Autobiography (1989) (co-written with Quincy Troupe, p. 371.)
At a White House reception in honor of Ray Charles 1987, this was his reply to a society lady seated next to him who had asked what he had done to be invited.
1980s

Miles Davis Quotes

“He plays like somebody is standing on his foot.”

Miles Davis

Alternative: He plays like somebody was standing on his foot.
In Down Beat "Blindfold Test" with Leonard Feather (13 June 1964); also in
On Eric Dolphy
1960s

“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
Art , Color , Wealth

“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

During an interview, after growing aggravated about questions on the subject of race.
1980s
Source: Jet (25 March 1985)

“Don't play what's there, play what's not there.”

Miles Davis

In SPIN (December 1990). p. 30, and in many other sources https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22play+anything+on+a+horn%22+miles+davis#hl=en&q=%22don%27t+play+what%27s+there%22+not+davis&tbm=bks, but I can't find the original one.
1990s

“Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery”

Miles Davis

Source: Miles: The Autobiography

Knowledge , Freedom

“Is that what you wanted, Alfred?”

Miles Davis

Quoted in: Jazz Journal International, (1983), p. 12.
Miles Davis asking Blue Note records producer Alfred Lion's approval of a recorded performance in Rudy Van Gelder's studio. Miles' gravelly-voice question was accidentally recorded, but included at the end of "One For Daddy-O" on the Cannonball Adderley recording "Somethin' Else": a famous recorded peek into the recording studio process.
1980s

“He could very well be the Duke Ellington of Rock 'n' Roll.”

Miles Davis

In [A Change is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America, Craig Hansen, Werner, University of Michigan Press, 2006, 9780472031474, 53] as: he can be the Duke Ellington of our times.
And in [Miles on Miles: Interviews and Encounters with Miles Davis, Musicians in Their Own Words Series, Paul Maher, Michael K. Dorr, Chicago Review Press, 2009, 9781556527067, 262] as: Do you know who Prince kinda reminds me of, particularly as a piano player? Duke! Yeah, he's the Duke Ellington of the eighties to my way of thinking.
On Prince
2000s

“"You can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played." and "I love Pops" (Louis' nickname) … Louis has been through all kinds of styles. That's good tuba, by the way. You know you can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played — I mean even modern. I love his approach to the trumpet; he never sounds bad. He plays on the beat — with feeling. That's another phrase for swing. I also love the way he sings.”

Miles Davis

In the Jazz Review with Nat Hentoff (1958); also in , and in many other books https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22play+anything+on+a+horn%22+miles+davis
On Louis Armstrong in a Playboy magazine interview.
1950s

Love , Way , Feeling , Singing

“Coleman Hawkins told me never to play with someone older than me, and I never have. With older players, there's no force, no drive. With younger players, it's not that you know it all, or I know it all—it's I'm trying to learn it all.”

Miles Davis

As quoted in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music (1978) by Julie Coryell and Laura Friedman, p. 40
1970s

Learning

“My ego only needs a good rhythm section.”

Miles Davis

In [Milestones: The music and times of Miles Davis since 1960, Jack, Chambers, Beech Tree Books, 1983, 9780688046460, 261]
"My ego only needs a good rhythm section" is also the title of an interview/article by Stephen Davis for The Real Paper (21 March 1973)
On being asked what he looked for in musicians.
1970s

“A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I'm still doing it.”

Miles Davis

On being called a legend.
Quoted in International Herald Tribune (17 July 1991); also in: [The Yale Book of Quotations, Fred R., Shapiro, Yale University Press, 2006, 9780300107982, 189]
1990s

“I’ll play it and tell you what it is later.”

Miles Davis

In [So What: The Life of Miles Davis, John, Szwed, Random House, 2012, 9781448106462], and in many other books https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22play+anything+on+a+horn%22+miles+davis#hl=en&q=%22+and+tell+you+what+it+is+later.+%22+miles+davis&tbm=bks
Sometimes rendered as: I'll play it first and tell you what it is later.
During a recording session for Prestige, on the album "Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet" (1956).
1950s

“I know what the power of silence is. When I used to play in clubs, everybody was loud; there was a lot of noise. So I would take my mute off the microphone, and I would play something so soft that you could hardly hear it… and you talk about listening. Roy Eldridge did that. He's one of my favorites.”

Miles Davis

As quoted in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music, p. 40
1970s

Silence

Similar authors

John Coltrane photo
John Coltrane 4
American jazz saxophonist
Frank Zappa photo
Frank Zappa 129
American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and fil…
Bob Dylan photo
Bob Dylan 523
American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist
Kurt Cobain photo
Kurt Cobain 158
American musician and artist
Nikki Sixx photo
Nikki Sixx 22
American musician
Jimi Hendrix photo
Jimi Hendrix 52
American musician, singer and songwriter
Bruce Willis photo
Bruce Willis 8
American actor, producer, and musician
Charles Manson photo
Charles Manson 53
American criminal and musician
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald 411
American novelist and screenwriter
David Bowie photo
David Bowie 105
British musician, actor, record producer and arranger