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The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern' art. What is more African than a Picasso?
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
African
Africa
Modern
Went
Came
Art
Back
Picasso
Europeans
More quotes by Duke Ellington
The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
Duke Ellington
Problems are chances for us to do our best.
Duke Ellington
Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn't do nothing.
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
If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
Duke Ellington
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.
Duke Ellington
Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
Duke Ellington
Dancing is very important to people who play music with a beat. I think that people who don't dance, or who never did dance, don't really understand the beat... I know musicians who don't and never did dance, and they have difficulty communicating.
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 is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
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
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.
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
I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!
Duke Ellington
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.
Duke Ellington
A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
Duke Ellington
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.
Duke Ellington
Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
Duke Ellington
Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
Duke Ellington
Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
Duke Ellington
