black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!

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

Money Myself Pay Togetherness
Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Herself Mistress Music Play
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Believe Black Kind White Yourself
Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Alive Fans Himself Suspect
If anybody was Mr. Jazz it was Louis Armstrong. He was the epitome of jazz and always will be. He is what I call an American standard, an American original.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Epitome Music Original Standard
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

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

Bad Category Goodness Listening Stop
The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern’ art. What is more African than a Picasso?
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Creativity Modern
Problems are chances for us to do our best.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Best Chance Ourselves Problem
There is no art without intention.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Creation Creativity Intention One Liner
If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Feeling Music Sound
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Communication Dance Important Myself People
Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Creation Goodness Taste True
A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Doll Herself Pretty Woman
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

Greatness Mediocre Musician Yourself
Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Discipline Value Virtue
A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Financial Loss Musical Profit
Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Dangerous Oneself Yourself
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Appearance Interest Myself Realize Right
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Contribution Expression Music Myself Problem
You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Finding Silence Way Yourself
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
Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Music Sing Song Sweet
Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Beautiful Music Reflection
There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Goodness Kind Music
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Kind Time Wasted Worry Yourself
There are 2 rules in life: Number 1- Never quit. Number2- Never forget rule number 1.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Forget Inspirational Life Rule

I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Duke Ellington Quotes