Miles Davis: Play

Miles Davis was American jazz musician. Explore interesting quotes on play.

Miles Davis: 60 quotes26 likes

“Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of who plays it is 80 percent.”

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

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

“you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.”

Miles Davis

“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

“"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

“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

“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

“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

“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