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Miles Davis Quotes


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Right on!!! I saw a documentary that had interviews with him that was fantastic, I'll try to find the name of it. In the meantime, here are 2 of my fave songs from him..."Circle" from 1966 and "Decoy" from 1983 (everybody loves his early stuff but what he was doing in the early 80's was just as mindblowing in my opinion!!!!

 

[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

 

[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

 

And of course one of (if not THE) my all time favorite standards, with him playing on it:

 

[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

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Coltrane had a habit of playing LOOOOng solos. Chorus after chorus after chorus and one time Miles asked him why.

 

"Well, I get going and I just can't stop. I don't know how." said the tenor great.

 

Miles said "Try taking the saxophone out of your mouth."

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Oh and this one:

 

"Back in bebop, everybody used to play real fast. But I didn't ever like playing a bunch of scales and {censored}. I always tried to play the most important notes in the chord, to break it up. I used to hear all them musicians playing all them scales and notes and never nothing you could remember." Miles Davis

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I've come to the conclusion that Miles was as much an ambassador of Jazz and music in general as he was a player.

 

His insight and straight-forward take on things has yet to be replicated, though the Marsalis' would probably beg to differ.

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"I don't make this music because I do drugs. I do drugs because I make this music."

 

"Guys come to me all the time with these complex charts. I can't play them."

 

On Herbie Hancock, paraphrased (underlined part is direct quote): "Every time I gave him a solo I dreaded it. Sure enough, he made sure to play all 88 keys.... he needs to be edited."

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In the Classic Albums program about Steely Dan's Aja, they interviewed Wayne Shorter and he talked a bit about playing with Miles---his quote (done in a hilarious "Miles Davis voice") was, "Don't give too much away." (He was talking about how to approach what to play---NOT playing for free, so everybody just stand down.)

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"I remember one time - it might have been a couple times - at the Fillmore East in 1970, I was opening for this sorry-ass cat named Steve Miller. Steve Miller didn't have his {censored} going for him, so I'm pissed because I got to open for this non-playing mother{censored}er just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and then we got there we smoked the mother{censored}ing place, everybody dug it."

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