Miles Davis

I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up in the morning and see the light. Then I’m grateful.

Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.

It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.

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

If you got up on the bandstand at Minton’s and couldn’t play, you might get your ass kicked.

I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.

A Jazz man should be saying what he feels: humor, sadness, joy… all the things that humans have.

I first fell in love with the piano, I knew it was me. I was dying to play.

When I achieved what I thought the musicians were trying to do, the sound sort of bloomed. When it’s right, everything is beautiful.

Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing very powerful emotions. That’s what draws people towards it.

I’m going to be on the road for the rest of my life.

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

I’m not thinking about what needs to be on the radio. I’m not thinking about anything other than – I’m just going to let this music come out of me and not have any sort of preconceived notion of what I should do. I’m just going to do it.

I haven’t got a great jazz band and I don’t want one. Some of the critics, Down Beat’s among them, point their fingers at us and charge us with forsaking real jazz . . . It’s all in what you define as ‘real jazz.’ It happens that to our ears harmony comes first. A dozen colored bands have a better beat than mine. Our band stresses harmony.

When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind.

If you’re gonna sing meaningful songs, you have to be committed to living a life that backs that up.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I’m contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don’t come in with lyrics… I just go in and let it happen.

Let the music speak for itself.

To keep creating you have to be about change.

People complain about the music industry, but this is a great time to be a musician.