Miles Davis

[On 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.

I really liked Wynton when I first met him. He’s still a nice young man, only confused.

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

Stop before you’re done.

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

You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don’t even notice.

I thank you in advance for the great round of applause I’m about to get.

Mary Lou Williams used to tell me: If you’re not feeling right, play a minor tune and it falls into place.

I’m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I’ve been.

If you must listen to bad music, please use headphones.

It’s not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

Jimmy (Wakely) told me, ‘I don’t want you to sound so much like Dinah Washington.’ So, I thought, ‘How can I get around this?’ And one of the people I really dug was Patti Page. So I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to sound like her.’ I actually did with a couple curly-cues thrown in for effect, but, that’s how I started getting away from the predominant Dinah influence, and getting my own style together.

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

The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.

There are no natural barriers. It’s all music.

I wanted to do the music, but not at the expense of being happy.

There are times when you want to go where you used to go and you can’t go there. So I’m back to Count Basie lifting his hand. And I find you can stop that show with one note just like you can with a hundred.

I wanted to sustain a note like a singer. I wanted to phrase a note like a saxist. By bending the strings, by trilling my hand – and I have big fat hands – I could achieve something that approximated a vocal vibrato. I could sustain a note. I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions. By fooling with the feedback between my amplifier and instrument, I started experimenting with sounds that expressed my feelings, whether happy or sad, bouncy or bluesy. I was looking for ways to let my guitar sing.

I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.