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 ELLINGTONI 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.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
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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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There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
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Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
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Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
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I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!
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The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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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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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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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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Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want 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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A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
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The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern’ art. What is more African than a Picasso?
DUKE ELLINGTON