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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

You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Bad Category Goodness Listening Stop
There is no art without intention.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Creation Creativity Intention One Liner
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
DUKE ELLINGTON

Beginning Boundary Classical Decision Difficult Lying
Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.
DUKE ELLINGTON

God Language Prayer Understand
Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Missing Play
There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Money Myself Pay Togetherness
Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Music Sing Song Sweet
Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Creation Instinct Past Thinking
Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Herself Mistress Music Play
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Live Music Myself Occupation Profession
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Blue Energy Myself Writing
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
The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Knowledge Master Musician
Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Cloud Pass Sky
The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Himself Important Known Listening Musician
Critics 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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Carry Criticism Focus Purpose Thinking

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!

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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!

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