Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.
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!
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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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.
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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
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You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
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Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.
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There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
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You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.
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It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
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I like any and all of my associations with music: writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky.
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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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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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I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
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Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
DUKE ELLINGTON