Miles Davis, besides being a fantastic musician, is a man of words. His music covered so much of what was there, unspoken, undefinable, but his words were sharp usually, brutal, and immediate. From him, we have probably the greatest advice you can get about music: “Don’t play what’s there. Play what’s not there.”

“If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow.”

-Miles, after an interview in which he had grown increasingly aggravated with continuous questions about race. I throw that one in just for you, Conrad.

“I’ve changed music four or five times. What have you done of any importance other than be white?”

-Miles Davis, at a reception he gone to that was honoring Ray Charles at the White House in 1987 and the above statement is his response to a lady of Washington society who was seated next to him when she asked him what he had done to be invited.

Miles Davis After Midnight by Robert Ashley. And:

The Miles Davis Quintet performing “‘Round Midnight” in Stockholm back in 1967: