Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
DUKE ELLINGTONThe artist must say it without saying it.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
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It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.
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There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
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The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
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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!
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The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
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It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
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My 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.
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Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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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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Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.
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Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
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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.
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I’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






