Duke Ellington Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• 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

  Believe, Kind, Problem

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  15 Copy quote

• Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.

  Duke Ellington

  Jazz, Barometer

  Mark Tucker, Duke Ellington (1995). “The Duke Ellington Reader”, p.295, Oxford Paperbacks

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Dance, Thinking, Play

  14 Copy quote

• Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.

  Duke Ellington

  Live For Today, Fans, Alive

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  10 Copy quote

• Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Fate, Want

  Mark Tucker, Duke Ellington (1995). “The Duke Ellington Reader”, p.398, Oxford Paperbacks

  26 Copy quote

• Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Self, Discipline

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  24 Copy quote

• Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn't do nothing.

  Duke Ellington

  Baby, Innovation, Deadline

  7 Copy quote

• The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern' art. What is more African than a Picasso?

  Duke Ellington

  Art, Modern, Modern Art

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  19 Copy quote

• Now I can say loudly and openly what I have been saying to myself on my knees.

  Duke Ellington

  Knees, Has Beens, I Can

  9 Copy quote

• In music, as you develop a theme or musical idea, there are many points at which directions must be decided, and at any time I was in the throes of debate with myself, harmonically or melodically, I would turn to Billy Strayhorn. We would talk, and then the whole world would come into focus. The steady hand of his good judgment pointed to the clear way that was fitting for us. He was not, as he was often referred to by many, my alter ego. 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

  Eye, Hands, Ideas

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Music, Writing, Problem

  11 Copy quote

• I don't need time, I need a deadline.

  Duke Ellington

  Needs, Deadline, Time Of Need

  9 Copy quote

• Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Marriage, Work

  Music Is My Mistress act 8 "Pedestrian Minstrel" (1973)

  24 Copy quote

• Every man prays in his own language.

  Duke Ellington

  Men, Language, Praying

  Mark Tucker, Duke Ellington (1995). “The Duke Ellington Reader”, p.371, Oxford Paperbacks

  15 Copy quote

• A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.

  Duke Ellington

  Loss, Musical, Financial

  14 Copy quote

• It's like an act of murder - you play with intent to commit something.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Play, Jazz

  New York Herald Tribune, July 09, 1961.

  10 Copy quote

• I began by tinkering around with some old tunes I knew. Then, just to try something different, I set to putting some music to the rhythm that I used in jerking ice-cream sodas at the Poodle Dog. I fooled around with the tune more and more until at last, lo and behold, I had completed my first piece of finished music.

  Duke Ellington

  Dog, Creativity, Ice Cream

  11 Copy quote

• 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.

  Duke Ellington

  New Orleans, Trying, Too Late

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Music, Writing, Play

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  10 Copy quote

• 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.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Should Have, Done

  "The Duke Ellington Reader".

  6 Copy quote

• San Francisco is one of the great cultural plateaus of the world - one of the really urbane communities in the United States - one of the truly cosmopolitan places and for many, many years, it always has had a warm welcome for human beings from all over the world

  Duke Ellington

  Years, San Francisco, Community

  14 Copy quote

• There is no art when one does something without intention.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Art, Doe

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  7 Copy quote

• Hurry, get on board, it's comin', listen to those rails a-thrumming all aboard. Get on the "A" train, soon you will be on Sugar Hill in Harlem.

  Duke Ellington

  Travel, Boards, Sugar

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Taught, Becoming

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  7 Copy quote

• I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King's son.

  Duke Ellington

  Kings, Son, Night

  8 Copy quote

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