The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords. I can't play them... I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.

About the new modal style. Interviewed by The Jazz Review, 1958; Quotes in Paul Maher, Michael K. Dorr (2009) Miles on Miles: Interviews and Encounters with Miles Davis, p. 18.