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

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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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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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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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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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If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
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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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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!
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Problems are chances for us to do our best.
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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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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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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!
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Every man prays in his own language.
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Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
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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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Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn't do nothing.
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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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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.
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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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