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Style: bebop, cool jazz, fusion, jazz, modal jazz
Miles Davis, jazz trumpeteer (trumpet, flugelhorn, piano, organ), born 25 May 1926 in Alton, Illinois, United States, and died 28 September 1991 in Santa Monica, California, United States.
“The Miles I know is Miles Davis in the late 60s, the Bitches Brew era. I’d heard of Miles via Herbie Hancock. I was 18, reading Jack Kerouac and beat writers who bang on about jazz all the time, and felt I needed to be challenged musically. That psychedelic inaccessible jazz works at an age when you are working stuff out for yourself. It was like a culture shock in my bedroom. I didn’t understand the music, I didn’t even like it that much , and yes, I knew there was heroin involved but I didn’t know in what way. I just knew I should be listening. It mattered that I’d heard it. And that combined experience of sound and literature felt very exotic.”—The 10 best jazz musicians by Jamie Cullum
“If they act too hip, you know they can’t play shit.”
“When you’re creating your own shit, man, even the sky ain’t the limit.”
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| ThisSideofSanity.com now has 17 Miles Davis songs
| ThisSideofSanity.com now has 17 Miles Davis songs
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“Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.”
“At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.”
“As long as I’ve been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.”
“We’re not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got ‘em, so they can keep ‘em.”
“I don’t care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can swing.”
“Always look ahead, but never look back.”
“I still got my Ferrari.”
“Monk was a gentle person, gentle and beautiful, but he was strong as an ox. And if I had ever said something about punching Monk out in front of his face Ð and I never did Ð then somebody should have just come and got me and taken me to the madhouse, because Monk could have just picked my little ass up and thrown me through a wall.”
“So what?”
“In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That’s a little bit too much.”
“Keith [Jarrett] played so nice I had to give him two pianos. I’d say ‘Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?’”
“You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.”
“I really liked Wynton [Marsalis] when I first met him. He’s still a nice young man, only confused.”
“Coltrane, you can’t play everything at once!”
“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.”
Regarding Louis Armstrong:
“You can’t play nothing on modern trumpet that doesn’t come from him, not even modern shit. I can’t even remember a time when he sounded bad playing the trumpet. Never. Not even one time. He had great feeling up in his playing and he always played on the beat. I just loved the way he played and sang.”
“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.”
“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”
“Nothing is out of the question for me. I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up in the morning and see the light…Then I’m grateful.”
“I’ll play it first and tell you what it is afterwards.”
“Do not fear mistakes. There are none.”
“A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I’m still doing it.”
“Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.”
