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Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

Duke Ellington

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

Act Commitment Murder Play Yourself
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 ELLINGTON

Greatness Mediocre Musician Yourself
I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Limitation Myself Time
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Believe Black Kind White Yourself
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Appearance Interest Myself Realize Right
Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Be Yourself Effort Hard Work Inspirational Self Love
What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
DUKE ELLINGTON

Important Meaning Music Yourself
The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Knowledge Master Musician
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Association Audience Listening Music Perspective Play
Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Alive Fans Himself Suspect
Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Creation Instinct Past Thinking
New music? Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Hell Music Time
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
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
I don’t need time, I need a deadline.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Limitation Myself Time
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!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Money Myself Pay Togetherness

Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

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Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

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