Quote

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

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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
Two
Sounds
Music
Kinds
Kind
Result
Good
Simply
Results
Yardstick
Successful
Yardsticks
Sound
Judged
Doesn
Failed

More quotes by Duke Ellington

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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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Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
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What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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Every man prays in his own language.
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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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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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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 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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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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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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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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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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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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Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
Duke Ellington
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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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Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
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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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Love is supreme and unconditional like is nice but limited.
Duke Ellington
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Simplicity is a most complex form
Duke Ellington