I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
DUKE ELLINGTONThe most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
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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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
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Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.
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There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
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I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
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Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
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It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
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I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King’s son.
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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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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.
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A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
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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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My biggest kick in music -playing or writing- is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything?
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Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
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I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!
DUKE ELLINGTON