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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.

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
Jazz
Standards
Anybody
Epitome
Call
Armstrong
American
Louis
Music
Standard
Always
Originals
Original

More quotes by Duke Ellington

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I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!
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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.
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Roaming through the jungle of Ohs and Ahs, searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats.
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Love is supreme and unconditional like is nice but limited.
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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.
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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?
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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn't do nothing.
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Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
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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.
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A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
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If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
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Simplicity is a most complex form
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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.
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On becoming more acquainted with the word of the Bible, I began to understand so much more of what I had been taught, and of what I had learned about life and about the people in mine.
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Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brainwaves in his head, and his in mine.
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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