It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
DUKE ELLINGTONA musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
More Duke Ellington Quotes
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Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want 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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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
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Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
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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.
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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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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.
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Simplicity is a most complex form.
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Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
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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 merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
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There is no art without intention.
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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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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.
DUKE ELLINGTON