Miles Davis Quotes

I play purely from the heart, y'know, and so if it doesn't work the first couple of hours, forget it.

You can't improvise if you are tense. Or thinking too much. You have to really let it go.

Most of the time, particularly with this record, 'The Light of the Sun,' I really just been standing in front of a microphone and blacking out musically, you know. I'd come back a couple hours later and there's six songs from beginning to end, you know? I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't know how I'm going to say it.

I love improvising on the spot. I like that pressure.

I don't rely on catchphrases or really like sing-along. I just do whatever I feel. Whatever the beat makes me say, I do that and I run with that. It's been working for me, so I'd be cool with that.

My life is ruled by four W's: my writing, my work, my wife, and my whisky. Not necessarily in that order.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes I feel like playing 'Hospital'. Sometimes I feel like playing 'Pablo Picasso'. I've been playing a lot lately. I do it as long as I feel like it.

I think it's better when you're natural, when you just do whatever you want, instead of doing classes where I see all these other people holding back because they've been trained with certain skills or techniques. I'm like, whatever.

But I just think we've got such a continuity with what we're doing that most people come in and fill in the blanks. And sometimes we leave a lot of blanks to be filled.

I don't really premeditate what I write my songs about; you know, they just kind of happen, and I can't start writing songs to please a certain group of people or propagate a certain message all the time. That's just not how my songwriting works - it just sort of comes out, and the songs are what they are.

I honestly can't characterize my style in words. It seems that whatever comes to me naturally, I play.

There's never any pressure on the music having to be something.

My friends, we all improvise together usually. So we write what I think is a good script but always leave a lot of room to find stuff on the day; and we always do find something. That's the advantage to having actors who are, in their own right, writers.

So, to come In with a set routine it's something I've never believed in. It should depend on how you feel, because you play what you feel.

Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance.

For me, playing music is like meditating - I just play and don't really think about what I'm doing, I just let it happen.

If you're playing a character who says whatever he wants, I felt free to say whatever I wanted on set.

I don't like planning what am I gonna say to the crowd. Sometimes the show takes a whole different twist.

When I'm performing music, it's like I'm doing a big improv.

So I usually call the songs when I get on the stage, according to what the crowd feels like to me. I can jump from 50 years ago to right up to now, and people will be familiar with the songs. And since we never do them the same way, it's a new experience.

There are people who have really high expectations for what we're doing. I have to not think about that so that I can be free and play around every day and not feel like I have to get it right. You want to be loose.

I just really need to sing and sing and sing and not worry about writing. Just by singing for pleasure, your voice takes you to what it wants to sing. And that is how the best stuff kind of emerges.

Sometimes on my show, I just play something out of the blue, and the band picks up on it.

I think by now if people hire me, they know I'm going to improvise. I'm an improviser by trade.

For the auditioning process, I love to move my body around, maybe dance a little bit, get myself in a really loose place where I'm free to play.