76+ Duke Ellington Quotes On Jazz, Music And Art

Duke Ellington was an American jazz composer, pianist, and bandleader who was one of the most influential figures in jazz music. He composed thousands of songs, many of which are still popular today, and his big band performed for over 50 years. He was also an arranger, a music teacher, and a cultural ambassador for the United States. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Duke Ellington on jazz, music, art.

Top 10 Duke Ellington Quotes

1. There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
2. A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
3. 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!
4. The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.
5. You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it's bad.
6. Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
7. I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
8. Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
9. A goal is a dream with a finish line.
10. I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right.

Duke Ellington Image Quotes

Gray skies are just clouds passing over. — Duke Ellington

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. — Duke Ellington

Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited. — Duke Ellington

A goal is a dream with a finish line. — Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington Short Quotes

• Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.
• Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
• A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
• Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
• Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn't do nothing.
• I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King's son.
• You've got to find some way of saying it without saying it.
• I don't need time, I need a deadline.
• Every man prays in his own language.
• Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.

Duke Ellington Quotes About Jazz

By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with. — Duke Ellington

It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line — Duke Ellington

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. — Duke Ellington

Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one. — Duke Ellington

What does music mean to you? What would you do without music? — Duke Ellington

If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good! — Duke Ellington

Jazz is a good barometer of freedom. — Duke Ellington

I don't need time. What I need is a deadline! — Duke Ellington

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. — Duke Ellington

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

Duke Ellington Quotes About Music

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

There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone. — Duke Ellington

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

New music? Hell, there's been no new music since Stravinsky. — Duke Ellington

A musical profit outweighs a financial loss. — Duke Ellington

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

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. — Duke Ellington

There is no art when one does something without intention. — Duke Ellington

There is no art without intention. — 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

Duke Ellington Quotes About Play

The wise musicians are those who play what they can master. — Duke Ellington

Playing "bop" is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing. — Duke Ellington

It's like an act of murder; you play with intent to commit something. — Duke Ellington

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

Duke Ellington Quotes About Problem

A problem is your chance to do your best. — 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

Problems are chances for us to do our best. — Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington Famous Quotes And Sayings

Put it this way: Jazz is a good barometer of freedom... In its beginnings, the United States of America spawned certain ideals of freedom and independence through which, eventually, jazz was evolved, and the music is so free that many people say it is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country. — Duke Ellington

Gray skies are just clouds passing over. — Duke Ellington

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. — Duke Ellington

Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited. — Duke Ellington

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. — Duke Ellington

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

A goal is a dream with a finish line. — Duke Ellington

Critics have their purposes, 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 they did. — Duke Ellington

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

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

New York is a place where the rich walk, the poor drive Cadillacs, and beggars die of malnutrition with thousands of dollars hidden in their mattresses. — 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

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

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

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

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

The artist must say it without saying it. — 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

Simplicity is a most complex form — Duke Ellington

There are 2 rules in life: Number 1- Never quit Number2- Never forget rule number 1. — Duke Ellington

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. ... I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. ... I don't need time, I need a deadline. ...There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind. ... Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one. — Duke Ellington

Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand. — Duke Ellington

Yet, every time God's children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened. — 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

Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else. — 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

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

Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct. — Duke Ellington

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

Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don't want it. — Duke Ellington

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

Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it. — 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

Life Lessons by Duke Ellington

1. Duke Ellington taught us to never give up on our dreams and to always strive for excellence in our work. He also showed us the importance of collaboration, as he often worked with other musicians to create unique and innovative pieces of music. Finally, he taught us the importance of staying humble and grateful for our successes, no matter how big or small.