If you make a suggestion and [musicians] don't know what you mean, you have to be able to do it yourself. I often sit down on drums and show 'em just exactly what I want. And I do it and then say, "How do you do that?" It's because I know how it looks, I know what I want to hear, and I don't drop or rush any tempo. It ain't in my body, it ain't in my nephew's body.
Miles DavisI usually write from the rhythm section...If a drummer got a funky beat on some things - like a half-shuffle or a shuffle or a backbeat that's even - I can write something.
Miles DavisI began to realize that some of the things Ornette Coleman had said about things being played three or fours ways, independently of each other, were true because Bach had also composed that way.
Miles Davis