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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!

Duke Ellington

Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Herself Mistress Music Play
If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Feeling Music Sound
Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Entrance Sound Wings
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Blue Energy Myself Writing
There is no art without intention.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Creation Creativity Intention One Liner
You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Finding Silence Way Yourself
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
Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Evidence Love Myself Yourself
The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Himself Important Known Listening Musician
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

Concern Criticism Himself Purpose Thinking
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
Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Freedom Goodness Measurement
On becoming more acquainted with the word of the Bible, I began to understand so much more of what I had been taught, and of what I had learned about life and about the people in mine.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Beginning Learning People Teaching Understand Word
Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Limitation Love
Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.
DUKE ELLINGTON

God Language Prayer Understand
The artist must say it without saying it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Artist Language
The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Knowledge Master Musician
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
There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Interest Money Music
Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Beautiful Music Reflection
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it’s successful; if it doesn’t it has failed.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Failure Kind Music Result Success
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

Ourselves Selfish Survive Virtue
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
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
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Bond Friendship Myself Right
There is no art when one does something without intention.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Intention
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

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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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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