The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
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
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The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
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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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Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.
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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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Every man prays in his own language.
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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.
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New York is a place where the rich walk, the poor drive Cadillacs, and beggars die of malnutrition with thousands of dollars hidden in their mattresses.
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Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
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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”.
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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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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
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There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
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The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern’ art. What is more African than a Picasso?
DUKE ELLINGTON