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 ELLINGTONI 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.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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The problem of expressing the contributions that Benny Carter has made to popular music is so tremendous it completely fazes me, so extraordinary a musician is he.
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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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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
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Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.
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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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New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
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Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want it.
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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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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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There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
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There is no art when one does something without intention.
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Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
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Every man prays in his own language.
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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
DUKE ELLINGTON