Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
DUKE ELLINGTONSelf-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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There is no art without intention.
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Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
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The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
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Now I can say loudly and openly what I have been saying to myself on my knees.
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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
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It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.
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It 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
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Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it.
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Of the One O’Clock Lab Band after hearing their performance, and sitting in with them at the White House: “I wish it were mine”.
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I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right.
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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.
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New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
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A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
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Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
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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






