"Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent."
"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."
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Source: Miles Davis, Quincy Troupe (1990). “Miles”, Simon and Schuster
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"It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong."
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