A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
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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Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.
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Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
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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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Every man prays in his own language.
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You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
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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 are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
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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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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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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
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Problems are chances for us to do our best.
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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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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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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”.
DUKE ELLINGTON






