Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
DUKE ELLINGTONIf anybody was Mr. Jazz it was Louis Armstrong. He was the epitome of jazz and always will be. He is what I call an American standard, an American original.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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Critics have their purposes, and they’re supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.
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There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it’s successful; if it doesn’t it has failed.
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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
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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 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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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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I don’t believe in categories of any kind, and when you speak of problems between blacks and whites in the U.S.A. you are referring to categories again.
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There is no art without intention.
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By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.
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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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I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!
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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.
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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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On becoming more acquainted with the word of the Bible, I began to understand so much more of what I had been taught, and of what I had learned about life and about the people in mine.
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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 ELLINGTON