Miles Davis

Always look ahead, but never look back.

Jazz music has got to have that thing. You have to be born with it. You can’t even buy it. If you could buy it, they’d have it at the next Newport festival.

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

It’s always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don’t know where it comes from, it’s just there and I don’t question it.

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

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

I think I’ve tried to stay true to my music since the beginning. It’s kind of hard because of the access and technology but I just do what I do.

When Bird came on the scene, it was shocking as in the Bible: everything was dark and then there was light.

No, working is what will keep you alive.

The more you play, the more you hear and the more you hear, the more you want to play.

If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don’t know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.

It’s not what they think, it’s about what’s best for the music.

Knowledge speaks, wisdom listens.

Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.

Jazz will only go where we the composers and musicians take it. It is up to us.

The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.

Jazz is very much alive. Everywhere I go there’s a new generation of musicians playing Jazz music.

When rock music came in, I wasn’t bitter about it. I was puzzled.

I have a deep respect for harmony, melodic patterns and form.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

How are you going to know what’s new to play if you haven’t listened to everything that’s old?