Miles Davis

Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.

I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands …If they act too hip, you know they can’t play shit.

If you understood everything I say, you’d be me!

Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.

In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That’s a little bit too much.

If the audience doesn’t hear what is going on, is it going on?

The audience should feel they are hearing the future, arriving just on time.

I want the music to connect to people; reach people every time I perform.

Some players get very philosophical and cerebral about Jazz. You don’t need any prologues, you just play.

I had a really good time in New Orleans, although I had some very tragic times in Baton Rouge. Some guys beat me up and threw my horn away. ‘Cause I had a beard, then, and long hair like the Beatles.

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

The violin, the saxophone, the trumpet: Each makes a very different sound but the very same notes. That’s pretty heavy, you know ? Imagine how many different races make up the human race. I’m called colored, you’re called white, he’s called something else. We still got an asshole and a mouth. Pardon me.

Always keep reaching.

Jazz music is a special skill that has brought pleasure to millions throughout the world.

When I decided that I wanted to be a Jazz musician, I knew that it was about improvising.

Talent is cheap, and many talents treat themselves cheaply.

Even when you write it, someone’s got to play it. So if you can play it and bypass all the rest of the things, you’re still doing as great as someone that has spent forty years trying to find out how to do that. I’m really pro-human beings, pro-expression of everything.

I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.

I don’t try to please when I play. I try to cure.

Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? All the rest of you, if you