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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
Duke Ellington
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Duke Ellington
Age: 75 †
Born: 1899
Born: April 29
Died: 1974
Died: May 24
Autobiographer
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Film Score Composer
Jazz Arranger
Jazz Musician
Lyricist
Music Arranger
Musician
Pianist
Washington
District of Columbia
Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy Ellington
Edward K. Ellington
Mean
Would
Jazz
Doe
Music
Without
More quotes by Duke Ellington
Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
Duke Ellington
Problems are chances for us to do our best.
Duke Ellington
The word [jazz] never lost its association with those New Orleans bordellos. In the 1920s I used to try to convince Fletcher Henderson that we ought to call what we were doing 'Negro music'. But it's too late for that now.
Duke Ellington
Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
Duke Ellington
Love is supreme and unconditional like is nice but limited.
Duke Ellington
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.
Duke Ellington
My biggest kick in music -playing or writing- is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything?
Duke Ellington
Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn't do nothing.
Duke Ellington
Simplicity is a most complex form
Duke Ellington
Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
Duke Ellington
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
There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
Duke Ellington
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
There are two kinds of worries - those you can do something about and those you can't. Don't spend any time on the latter.
Duke Ellington
The common root, of course, comes out of Africa. That's the pulse.The African pulse. It's all the way back from . . . the old slave chants and up through the blues, the jazz, and up through rock. And it's all got the African pulse.
Duke Ellington
My mother told me I was blessed, and I have always taken her word for it. Being born of - or reincarnated from - royalty is nothing Like being blessed. Royalty is inherited from another human being blessedness comes from God.
Duke Ellington
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
I'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.
Duke Ellington
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 Ellington
Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
Duke Ellington
