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 ELLINGTONThere are 2 rules in life: Number 1- Never quit. Number2- Never forget rule number 1.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.
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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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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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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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New York is a place where the rich walk, the poor drive Cadillacs, and beggars die of malnutrition with thousands of dollars hidden in their mattresses.
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A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
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Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
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There is no art when one does something without intention.
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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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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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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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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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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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Simplicity is a most complex form.
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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.
DUKE ELLINGTON