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 ELLINGTONThe Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern’ art. What is more African than a Picasso?
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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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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Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
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Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it.
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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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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.
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New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
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There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it’s successful; if it doesn’t it has failed.
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Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
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Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
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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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I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
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Problems are chances for us to do our best.
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There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
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Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
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The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern’ art. What is more African than a Picasso?
DUKE ELLINGTON