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:
meh. not even miles davis can make jazz cool. if I ever get to an age where I start liking jazz, I hope someone will just kill me to save myself the embarrassment.
Beg to differ. Jazz created cool in the crucible of Great Fucking and disseminated it amongst the people… fifty years before “Kewl” came in family-sized biodegradable squeeze-bottle six-packs with MTV stickers on top. You don’t have to love the shit to know it’s real. Hate ballet, dig the ballerinas.
Most squeeze bottles are not biodegradable; but once you’ve used the squeeze-on lite mayonnaise, it’s hard to go back to Jar and Knife. …”created cool in the crucible of Great Fucking,” is that off wikipedia or something? That phrase lacks meaning.
I dislike improvisation in… pretty much all its forms, which is why I’ll never like Jazz.
“I dislike improvisation in… pretty much all its forms”
No shit.