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You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.

Duke Ellington

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Blue Energy Myself Writing
The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Himself Important Known Listening Musician
I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Limitation Myself Time
Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Freedom Goodness Measurement
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Communication Dance Important Myself People
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Failure Kind Music Result Success
I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King’s son.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Finding Himself Man Request
There is no art when one does something without intention.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Intention
There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Interest Money Music
Yet, every time God’s children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Children Communication God Honesty Miracle Time
A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Best Chance Problem 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
The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern’ art. What is more African than a Picasso?
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Creativity Modern
The artist must say it without saying it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Artist Language
Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Lazy Limitation Procrastination
Problems are chances for us to do our best.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Best Chance Ourselves Problem

You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.

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You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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