Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
DUKE ELLINGTONThe artist must say it without saying it.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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There are two kinds of worries – those you can do something about and those you can’t. Don’t spend any time on the latter.
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Problems are chances for us to do our best.
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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern’ art. What is more African than a Picasso?
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I like any and all of my associations with music: writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky.
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Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
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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!
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It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
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My biggest kick in music -playing or writing- is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything?
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Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
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Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
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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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Everybody in Canada seemed to listen to what they enjoyed, and nobody could tell them what to like, or what was the popular, or what was the In thing. Even today, it is very hard to brainwash a Canadian.
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Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.
DUKE ELLINGTON