I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!
DUKE ELLINGTONIt 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
More Duke Ellington Quotes
-
-
New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
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 -
A goal is a dream with a finish line.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King’s son.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
There is no art when one does something without intention.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
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 -
Everybody 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 ELLINGTON -
Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
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 -
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