Miles Davis

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

So What or Kind of Blue were done in that era, the right hour, the right day. It’s over; it’s on the record.

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

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

[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.

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

So until we see you again, bright moments and keep searchin’ for your mystery note on the universal piano of life.

Sometimes I sound like gravel and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream.

The Blues and Jazz will live forever. So will the Delta and the Big Easy.

The beauty of Jazz is that it’s malleable. People address it to suit their own personalities.

If I don’t learn something new every day, it’s a day lost

Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.

Is there a meaning to music? Yes. Can you state in so many words what the meaning is? No.

A band ought to have a sound all of its own. It ought to have a personality.

You can’t sing about love unless you know about it.

Just ’cause I’ve forgotten more than I can play, doesn’t mean it’s not Improv.

Jazz is an art that makes a person completely naked.

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

It’s not technique — it’s what you have to say.

Musicians don’t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them.

In fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have fifteen seconds.