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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
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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
Mediocre
Band
Great
Drummer
More quotes by Duke Ellington
Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
Duke Ellington
Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
Duke Ellington
A goal is a dream with a finish line.
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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.
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
If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
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.
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
I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!
Duke Ellington
Love is supreme and unconditional like is nice but limited.
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
Problems are chances for us to do our best.
Duke Ellington
The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern' art. What is more African than a Picasso?
Duke Ellington
Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
Duke Ellington
People do not retire. They are retired by others.
Duke Ellington
What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
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
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.
Duke Ellington
Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
Duke Ellington
