Quotes About Miles Davis

#1. I'm thankful enough or blessed enough to be able to say that Miles Davis was a friend when he was alive, and he was a wonderful mentor and really, really funny, you know.

Prince

#2. If we are going to list guitar influences, the biggest one by far is Wes Montgomery. Also, Gary Burton was obviously huge for me in a number of ways. But beyond that, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard.

Pat Metheny

#3. I am a leader. Leaders always get heat. They're always going against the grain. Jimi Hendrix got heat; Bob Marley got heat; Miles Davis got heat. Every great artist got heat. Heat means you're doing something right.

Ziggy Marley

#4. My musical influences are from the '50s: Bill Evans, Miles Davis and Ahmad Jamal.

Michael Moriarty

#5. If Miles Davis hadn't died it would have been interesting to do an album with him, but there wasn't much else that would have got me into the studio ... although Herbie Hancock has just been in touch about doing something and that would be an interesting combination.

Phil Collins

#6. The only person I have regrets about is Miles Davis. He and I had become good friends after we did a photo shoot, and coincidentally, we kept running into each other at parties and stuff. I regret not having written a hit for Miles Davis.

Nile Rodgers

#7. I was a fan of Andy's since I was a small kid. I recall seeing an ad of famous people on an airplane together. It was caricature drawing. There was Muhammad Ali, there was Miles Davis, and there was Andy Warhol. I had a fascination with him since I was little.

Jeffrey Deitch

#8. Jazz music is as American as it gets, and so is the U.S. Postal Service. A Miles Davis stamp is a perfect marriage of two great American institutions.

Henry Rollins

#9. The thing is, all my heroes were junkies. Lenny Bruce, Keith Richards, William Burroughs, Miles Davis, Hubert Selby, Jr ... These guys were cool. They were committed. They would not have been caught dead doing an ALF episode.

Jerry Stahl

#10. Miles Davis, his parents migrated from Arkansas to Illinois, where he had the luxury of being able to practice for hours upon hours. He never would have been able to do that in the cotton country of Arkansas.

Isabel Wilkerson

#11. It evoked Picasso and Miles Davis for me - two great artists who totally indulged themselves in their work and who they were, but they certainly didn't give a damn what other people thought.

Rodney Crowell

#12. Miles Davis is a major influence of mine in terms of the way that I am as a bandleader.

Stefon Harris

#13. Footballers can be like artists when the mind and body are working as one. It is what Miles Davis does when he plays free jazz - everything pulls together into one intense moment that is beautiful.

Lilian Thuram

#14. I personally think Miles Davis is a lot funnier than me. And he's working more.

Gilbert Gottfried

#15. No one told Miles Davis or BB King to pack it in. John Lee Hooker played literally up to the day he died. Why should pop musicians be any different?

Paul Weller

#16. I didn't grow up during the time that Louis Armstrong or Miles Davis and all those people were playing. So it's not really my responsibility to keep it up, what they were doing.

Trombone Shorty

#17. Miles Davis was a master. In every phase of his career, he understood that this music was a tribute to the African muse.

Cassandra Wilson

#18. [Miles Davis] learned from everyone. He was incredible. He took the best from everyone and threw away the rest. He was brilliant. One of the things he told me he loved about my voice was how I used space-both in music and between my voice and the mike.

Helen Merrill

#19. I believe, from reading biographies, that the great musicians have also been great cooks: Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach. I think I've worked out why this is - unsociable hours, plus general creativity.

Jamie Cullum

#20. Miles Davis had me play and he hired me the following week and after that, everything broke wide open.

Miroslav Vitous

#21. People behind the Iron curtain have such an incredible image of America and jazz. I expected to find a Gerry Mulligan or Miles Davis on every corner ... I almost expected a Shorty Rogers to deliver the milk, a Bud Shank to be the mailman.

Gabor Szabo

#22. With a lot of the music I really love, like Miles Davis, you can go back and see the processes and the stages.

Kieran Hebden

#23. Dave Rocha is a mature and eminently musical improviser. His sumptuous tone and cafefully chosen notes embody real musical thought. His performance of 'Dear Old Stockholm' at Chez Hanny evoked favorable comparisons to Miles Davis' classic recording.

Frank Hanny

#24. Music is my only guide. I don't care if people pigeonhole me. Miles Davis is my hero. He covered Cindy Lauper and Michael Jackson, and he didn't give a hoot about what the purists said.

Meshell Ndegeocello

#25. We're trying to do what Miles Davis would have wanted us to do, which is approach it as artists with his life as the canvas.

Don Cheadle

#26. I wanted very much to be Miles Davis when I was a boy, but without the practice. It just looked like an endless road.

Barry Hannah

#27. Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

Gerry Mulligan

#28. It's called 'Miles Davis, Prince of Darkness,' and it's about Miles Davis, the genius, and why he was the way he was, and how he changed music so many times. He changed music six times. So, I'm excited about that movie.

George Tillman Jr.

#29. I like to listed to the adventurous guys - the Coltranes, Miles Davis, the guys who just let it loose.

Herb Alpert

#30. When you're 8 years old, and you've become subconsciously familiar with the layout and design of Black Sparrow books, and you know the difference between Miles Davis and John Coltrane, something is bound to stick.

Patrick DeWitt

#31. I think it comes from really liking literary forms. Poetry is very beautiful, but the space on the page can be as affecting as where the text is. Like when Miles Davis doesn't play, it has a poignancy to it.

Jim Jarmusch

#32. Miles Davis turned his back to the audience when he came out on stage, and he offended people. But, he wasn't there to entertain; he was all about the music. I kind of do that.

Bobby McFerrin

#33. I work with many jazz artists as Miles Davis, Laughlin, etc.. One of the things all these artists had in common is that they had no fear.

George Duke

#34. I love nineties stuff like Alice in Chains and Nine Inch Nails. It'd be my dream to have a Radiohead-themed episode of 'Glee.' I also love jazz greats like Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock.

Mark Salling

#35. I saw Al Foster with Miles Davis the other week. It was beautiful. But, the whole thing was, Al Foster played as well as everybody else, but all of them were quite brilliant under Miles Davis' direction.

Charlie Watts

#36. My playing started to develop through the Miles Davis stuff I was listening to.

Robert Quine

#37. I used to be friends with Miles Davis. He didn't like many folks. I lived across the street from him.

Rip Torn

#38. So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what they have given us.

Herbie Hancock

#39. I never considered Miles Davis a perfectionist; I always considered him as an excellence-ist, where deviation is actually kind of cool.

Charlie Trotter

#40. I gave up language for a while, and I started painting.And then I only listened to Miles Davis and other instrumental music to see how it felt to be without words.

Rosanne Cash

#41. Evil tendency, strong like Miles Davis heroin dependency.

Chino XL

#42. People will have MP3s of every Miles Davis' record but never think of hearing any of them twice in a row - there's just too much to get through.

Jonny Greenwood

#43. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, Paul Chambers, Bill Evans, and Jimmy Cobb playing "All Blues," a moody, blues form piece in 6/8, off the 1959 album Kind of Blue.

Blake Crouch

#44. One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else.

Branford Marsalis

#45. Now is a good time, 10 years ago would have been a good time, and 10 years from now it will still be a good time to see a dynamic, entertaining movie that's wall-to-wall Miles Davis where the music will hopefully spark some desire to know more about the man.

Don Cheadle

#46. There are certain songs that I like to listen to at certain times of the day. For example, first thing in the morning I love listening to "Flamenco Sketches" off of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.

Jon Foreman

#47. My own musical background is based in the blues, and in classical composition. I grew up listening to Muddy Waters, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Beethoven and Bach.

Frederick Lenz

#48. I am in the lineage of Gil Scott-Heron, great activist-type artists. But I'm also in the lineage of a Miles Davis - you know, that liked nice things also.

Kanye West

#49. I think that cheap music often does make you dream more than more serious music, whether that's serious music by Beethoven or Miles Davis or Pink Floyd ... if the Floyd ever did serious music, which I seriously doubt.

Jonathan Meades

#50. Miles Davis fully embraced possibilities and delved into it. He was criticized heavily from the jazz side. He was supposed to be part of a tradition, but he didn't consider himself part of a tradition.

Bill Laswell

#51. Miles Davis was doing something inherently African, something that has to do with all forms of American music, not just jazz.

Cassandra Wilson

#52. I love music, and a lot of it. Jazz is probably on the top with guys like Miles Davis. But I even enjoy music from the '60s and '70s.

Donovan Bailey

#53. I remember listening to Miles Davis in the car with my dad. I had just done my Grade 5 piano exam, and I was quite cocky. I said, 'It sounds like he's played the wrong note there.' I remember the look of horror on my dad's face, and thinking, 'Wow, I have to figure out why that is not acceptable.'

Laura Mvula

#54. I don't see why I can't listen to Miles Davis and Slipknot in the same afternoon.

Steve Lukather

#55. Miles Davis was a part of my life from 1947 on. I was born in 1941 and I first heard him in 1947 on a 78 rpm. And then I followed his career, starting with his first solo album in 1951. He was an icon and inspiration and a mentor to me.

Chick Corea

#56. If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.

Ice-T

#57. Miles Davis would have this lineup of all these amazing musicians and one day would just say, 'We're done.' After tons of great records and tickets sold, he said, 'Now I'm going to grow my hair out and play my horn through a wah-wah pedal.' Rather than play it safe, he went on.

Henry Rollins

#58. When I have to compete with John Coltrane and Miles Davis and Louie Armstrong on iTunes, which I'm doing now, that's a problem. That means that jazz is not being heard by younger audiences.

Robert Glasper

#59. I used to try to play like [Miles Davis], and Miles caught me copying him one night at Birdland. He said, 'Hey man, why don't you play some of your own stuff.' So, I finally did, because I had copied all his solos.

Freddie Hubbard

#60. Coltrane was moving out of jazz into something else. And certainly Miles Davis was doing the same thing.

Jan Garbarek

#61. I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.

Carlos Santana

#62. When I was banned for nine months I had an opportunity to focus on something else and I needed to focus on something else. It's who I am. I admire Miles Davis and Chet Baker a lot and I like this instrument, so I tried and I learned and practised for two months. But I stopped after that.

Eric Cantona

#63. As a bassist he could never really be a sideman. He was always the anchor. He drove the beat. even if it was behind Miles Davis'a horn.

Michael Connelly

#64. The Angel Gabriel disappeared once for sixty years and they found him on earth hiding in the body of a man named Miles Davis.

Christopher Moore

#65. I have tons of jazz records: John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis. I could go on and on.

Ted King

#66. Music gives me a lot of peace, either classic music with its structure or the spontaneity of Miles Davis. It brings the best in you.

Mohamed ElBaradei

#67. I thought, If I'm gonna run a jazz club, if I've got Miles Davis' posters in my bar, I should at least know what his horn sounds like.

Oprah Winfrey

#68. Some day I'm gonna call me up on the phone, so when I answer, I can tell myself to shut up.

Miles Davis

#69. When kids don't learn about their own heritage in school, they just don't care about school ... But you won't see it in the history books unless we get the power to write our own history and tell our story ourselves.

Miles Davis

#70. If you understood everything I said, you'd be me

Miles Davis

#71. Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.

Miles Davis

#72. I was minding my own business when something says to me, "you ought to blow trumpet." I have just been trying ever since.

Miles Davis

#73. My ego only needs a good rhythm section

Miles Davis

#74. I always listen to what I can leave out.

Miles Davis

#75. When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads

Miles Davis

#76. Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.

Miles Davis

#77. I never thought that the music called "jazz" was ever meant to reach just a small group of people, or become a museum thing locked under glass like all the other dead things that were once considered artistic.

Miles Davis

#78. I throw 70 miles an hour. That's throwing like a girl.

Mo'ne Davis

#79. White folks always think that you have to have a label on everything - you know what I mean?

Miles Davis

#80. To keep creating you have to be about change.

Miles Davis

#81. If you love them in the morning with their eyes full of crust; if you love them at night with their hair full of rollers, chances are, you're in love.

Miles Davis

#82. Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.

Miles Davis

#83. I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I've never got there ... I'm always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though, trying to always feel it in and through the music I play everyday.

Miles Davis

#84. Everybody ought to listen to Benny [Carter]. He's a whole musical education.

Miles Davis

#85. If you're not nervous then you're not paying attention.

Miles Davis

#86. See, music is about style.

Miles Davis

#87. Bad music is what will ruin music, not the instruments musicians choose to play.

Miles Davis

#88. Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. They should stop using that word for selling. I told George Wein the other day that he should stop using it.

Miles Davis

#89. [Prince] could very well be the Duke Ellington of Rock 'n' Roll.

Miles Davis

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

Miles Davis

#91. You can't compete with Sweets' sound and time feel. It's impossible.

Miles Davis

#92. Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?

Miles Davis

#93. You have to practice for a long time before you can learn to sound like yourself

Miles Davis

#94. If you got up on the bandstand at Minton's and couldn't play, you were not only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you or booing you, you might get your ass kicked.

Miles Davis

#95. Tom Jones is funny to me, man. I mean, he really tries to ape Ray Charles and Sammy Davis, you know. He's nice-looking; he looks good doing it. I mean, if I was him, I'd do the same thing. If I was only thinking about making money.

Miles Davis

#96. Music is the framework around the silence.

Miles Davis

#97. You can dominate a game if you dominate on the line ... We're just going to have to go out there and work hard and blow people off the ball, and let our runners do what they do best.

Miles Davis

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

Miles Davis

#99. I know what I've done for music, but don't call me "a legend".( ... ) A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I'm still doing it.

Miles Davis

#100. You can't play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn't played

Miles Davis