Duke Ellington Quotes
Collection of top 74 famous quotes about Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington Quotes & Sayings
Happy to read and share the best inspirational Duke Ellington quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.
Love is supreme and unconditional. Like is nice, but limited.
— Duke Ellington
I keep reverting (to Duke Ellington), he to me is the greatest ever and my favorite jazz philosopher, as such.
— Cannonball Adderley
Problems are chances for us to do our best.
— Duke Ellington
My attitude is never to be satisfied, never enough, never.
— Duke Ellington
Simplicity is a most complex form
— Duke Ellington
My teachers are Duke Ellington and nature.
— Toru Takemitsu
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
— Duke Ellington
I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone.
— Steve Lacy
A goal is a dream with a finish line.
— Duke Ellington
You've got to find some way of saying it without saying it.
— 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
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.
— Duke Ellington
The artist must say it without saying it.
— Duke Ellington
There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!
— Duke Ellington
Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
— Duke Ellington
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
I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!
— Duke Ellington
What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
— Duke Ellington
Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.
— Duke Ellington
A few years later, my Uncle David took me to the Earle Theatre to hear Duke Ellington.
— David Amram
There is no art when one does something without intention.
— Duke Ellington
Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.
— Duke Ellington
The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
— Duke Ellington
Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn't do nothing.
— Duke Ellington
People do not retire. They are retired by others.
— Duke Ellington
I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King's son.
— Duke Ellington
The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
— Duke Ellington
If it sounds good, it IS good.
— Duke Ellington
There is no art without intention.
— Duke Ellington
It doesn't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing
— Duke Ellington
Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
— Duke Ellington
Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It's not an occupation or profession, it's a compulsion.
— Duke Ellington
![Duke Ellington Quotes By Miles Davis: [Prince] could very well be the Duke Ellington](https://www.wisefamousquotes.com/images/duke-ellington-quotes-by-miles-davis-2036584.jpg "Duke Ellington Quotes By Miles Davis: [Prince] could very well be the Duke Ellington")
A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
— Duke Ellington
If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
— Duke Ellington
Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one.
— Duke Ellington
At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.
— Miles Davis
Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
— Duke Ellington
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
You can't write music right unless you know how the man that'll play it plays poker.
— Duke Ellington
Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it.
— 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
By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.
— Duke Ellington
The Europeans who went to Africa came back with modern' art. What is more African than a Picasso?
— Duke Ellington
There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
— Duke Ellington
New music? Hell, there's been no new music since Stravinsky.
— Duke Ellington
Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.
— Duke Ellington
There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
— Duke Ellington
Critics get a little carried away with what someone should have done, rather than what he did.
— Duke Ellington
Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
— Duke Ellington
Of the One O'Clock Lab Band after hearing their performance, and sitting in with them at the White House: "I wish it were mine".
— Duke Ellington
It's like Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad. And you can tell when something is good.
— Ray Charles
Duke Ellington always had a style: original, clean with interesting color combinations. He had an artist's eye.
— Wynton Marsalis
Every man prays in his own language.
— 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, I need a deadline.
— Duke Ellington
You've got to find a way of saying it without saying it.
— Duke Ellington
If I were to put on Barbra Streisand and Duke Ellington, one might say the combination isn't good.
— Norman Granz
Playing 'bop' is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
— Duke Ellington