black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.

Duke Ellington

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
Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Music Sing Song Sweet
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Evidence Love Myself Yourself
There is no art when one does something without intention.
DUKE ELLINGTON

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

Himself Important Known Listening Musician
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
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
Of the One O’Clock Lab Band after hearing their performance, and sitting in with them at the White House: “I wish it were mine”.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Hear Myself Performance
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
Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Famous Fate Kindness Myself Young
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
A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Doll Herself Pretty Woman
There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Interest Money Music
It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Act Commitment Murder Play Yourself
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
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Death Hide Place Walk

Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Duke Ellington Quotes