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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.

Duke Ellington

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
The artist must say it without saying it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Artist Language
The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Himself Important Known Listening Musician
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
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
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
People do not retire. They are retired by others.
DUKE ELLINGTON

People Retirement
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
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
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Association Audience Listening Music Perspective Play
I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Limitation Myself Time
Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Creation Instinct Past Thinking
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
By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Association Kind Man Yourself
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
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Blessing Human Inheritance Mom Myself Royalty

Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.

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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.

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