The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
DUKE ELLINGTONThe wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
DUKE ELLINGTONPeople do not retire. They are retired by others.
DUKE ELLINGTONI merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
DUKE ELLINGTONThere 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 ELLINGTONWithout a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
DUKE ELLINGTONI 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 ELLINGTONMy 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 ELLINGTONSimplicity is a most complex form.
DUKE ELLINGTONCreate, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
DUKE ELLINGTONBy and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.
DUKE ELLINGTONEverybody in Canada seemed to listen to what they enjoyed, and nobody could tell them what to like, or what was the popular, or what was the In thing. Even today, it is very hard to brainwash a Canadian.
DUKE ELLINGTONNow I can say loudly and openly what I have been saying to myself on my knees.
DUKE ELLINGTONNew music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
DUKE ELLINGTONThere 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 ELLINGTONSelf-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
DUKE ELLINGTONI’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