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.
DUKE ELLINGTONI’m sure critics have their purpose, and they’re supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what he did.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.
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By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.
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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
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Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.
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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.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
There are 2 rules in life: Number 1- Never quit. Number2- Never forget rule number 1.
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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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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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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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Critics have their purposes, and they’re supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.
DUKE ELLINGTON -
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON