Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
DUKE ELLINGTONWhat does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.
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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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You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
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Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
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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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There are 2 rules in life: Number 1- Never quit. Number2- Never forget rule number 1.
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Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
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Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want it.
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It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.
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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.
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Everybody in Canada seemed to listen to what they enjoyed, and nobody could tell them what to like, or what was the popular, or what was the In thing. Even today, it is very hard to brainwash a Canadian.
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There is no art when one does something without intention.
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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.
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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
DUKE ELLINGTON






