If you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!
DUKE ELLINGTONLove 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.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
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I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
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There is no art when one does something without intention.
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Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It’s not an occupation or profession, it’s a compulsion.
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The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
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A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
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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 most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
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New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
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Every man prays in his own language.
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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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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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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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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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If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
DUKE ELLINGTON