Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It’s not an occupation or profession, it’s a compulsion.
DUKE ELLINGTONIt is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line
More Duke Ellington Quotes
-
-
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Dancing is very important to people who play music with a beat. I think that people who don’t dance, or who never did dance, don’t really understand the beat. I know musicians who don’t and never did dance, and they have difficulty communicating.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brainwaves in his head, and his in mine.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Now I can say loudly and openly what I have been saying to myself on my knees.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
My mother told me I was blessed, and I have always taken her word for it. Being born of – or reincarnated from – royalty is nothing Like being blessed. Royalty is inherited from another human being; blessedness comes from God.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
DUKE ELLINGTON