Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
DUKE ELLINGTONJazz is a good barometer of freedom.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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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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Every man prays in his own language.
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The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern’ art. What is more African than a Picasso?
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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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Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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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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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.
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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.
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Simplicity is a most complex form.
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By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.
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Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
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Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
DUKE ELLINGTON