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

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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern' art. What is more African than a Picasso?
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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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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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Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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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.
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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.
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Love is supreme and unconditional like is nice but limited.
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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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If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
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There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
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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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Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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