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 ELLINGTONYet, every time God’s children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
-
-
If 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.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
A goal is a dream with a finish line.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern’ art. What is more African than a Picasso?
DUKE ELLINGTON -
There is no art without intention.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Problems are chances for us to do our best.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Simplicity is a most complex form.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
If you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
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