Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
DUKE ELLINGTONOf the One O’Clock Lab Band after hearing their performance, and sitting in with them at the White House: “I wish it were mine”.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
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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.
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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.
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A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
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Simplicity is a most complex form.
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Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
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My mother told me I was blessed, and I have always taken her word for it. Being born of – or reincarnated from – royalty is nothing Like being blessed. Royalty is inherited from another human being; blessedness comes from God.
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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
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A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
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Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
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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.
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There is no art without intention.
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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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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”.
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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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Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
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Yet, every time God’s children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.
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Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
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Every man prays in his own language.
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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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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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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.
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There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!
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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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New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
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