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.
DUKE ELLINGTONCritics 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.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
-
-
People do not retire. They are retired by others.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
I’m sure critics have their purpose, 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 he did.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
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 -
Yet, every time God’s children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
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.
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 -
Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Dancing is very important to people who play music with a beat. I think that people who don’t dance, or who never did dance, don’t really understand the beat. I know musicians who don’t and never did dance, and they have difficulty communicating.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
There are 2 rules in life: Number 1- Never quit. Number2- Never forget rule number 1.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Simplicity is a most complex form.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Every man prays in his own language.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
A goal is a dream with a finish line.
DUKE ELLINGTON