Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
DUKE ELLINGTONSing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
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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.
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Yet, every time God’s children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.
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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.
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Simplicity is a most complex form.
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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.
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It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.
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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
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Every man prays in his own language.
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There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
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Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
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There are two kinds of worries – those you can do something about and those you can’t. Don’t spend any time on the latter.
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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King’s son.
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Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.
DUKE ELLINGTON