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People do not retire. They are retired by others.

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

Association Kind Man Yourself
Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Entrance Sound Wings
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Believe Black Kind White Yourself
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 ELLINGTON

Bond Friendship Myself Right
Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Music Sing Song Sweet
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

Greatness Mediocre Musician Yourself
A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Best Chance Problem Yourself
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

Communication Dance Important Myself People
If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Feeling Music Sound
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

Beginning Learning People Teaching Understand Word
You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Bad Category Goodness Listening Stop
Simplicity is a most complex form.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Complex Form Simplicity
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

Concern Criticism Himself Purpose Thinking
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?
DUKE ELLINGTON

Interest Music Problem Yourself
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

Failure Kind Music Result Success
Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Freedom Goodness Measurement

People do not retire. They are retired by others.

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People do not retire. They are retired by others.

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