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

More quotes by Duke Ellington

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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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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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I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!
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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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The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern' art. What is more African than a Picasso?
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The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
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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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Love is supreme and unconditional like is nice but limited.
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Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
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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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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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Simplicity is a most complex form
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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
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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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Problems are chances for us to do our best.
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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
Duke Ellington
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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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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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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