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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
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Result
Good
Simply
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Yardstick
Successful
Yardsticks
Sound
Judged
Doesn
Failed
Two
Sounds
Music
Kinds
More quotes by 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.
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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.
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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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The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
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If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
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A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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
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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Problems are chances for us to do our best.
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Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
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Simplicity is a most complex form
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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn't do nothing.
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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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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!
Duke Ellington
What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
Duke Ellington
Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
Duke Ellington
I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!
Duke Ellington
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.
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
