Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Duke Ellington
19 quotes
“It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing).”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Song title (1932).
“I think of music sometimes in terms of color [...] and [in a furnace] I like to see the flames licking yellow in the dark and then pulsing down to a kind of red glow.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Sights enabling musical inspiration] The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician [...] Things like the old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night, or something someone said long ago. I remember I once wrote a sixty-four-bar piece about a memory of when I was a little boy in bed and heard a man whistling on the street outside, his footsteps echoing away. Things like these may be more important to a musician than technique.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From an interview with Richard O. Boyer, as cited in "The Hot Bach - I", The New Yorker (June 16, 1944; print edition: June 24, 1944)
“As Bach says [...] if you ain't got a left hand, you ain't worth a hoot in hell.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Expressing a liking for trains] Folks can't rush you until you get off.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can't write music right [...] until you know how the man that'll play it plays poker.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Y]ou've got to write with certain men in mind. You write just for their abilities and natural tendencies and give them places where they do their best—certain entrances and background stuff. You got to know each man to know what he'll react well to. One guy likes very simple ornamentation; another guy likes ornamentation better than the theme because it gives him a feeling of being a second mind. Every musician has his favorite licks and you gotta write to them.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know what sounds well on a trombone and I know what sounds well on a trumpet and they are not the same. [...] I know what Tricky Sam can play on a trombone and I know what Lawrence Brown can play on a trombone and they are not the same either.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My band is my instrument more than the piano.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From an interview with Richard O. Boyer, as cited in "The Hot Bach - II", The New Yorker (July 1, 1944), p. 26, 28
“Playing "Bop" is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Look (August 10, 1954).
“[Asked about the vogue for Rock 'n' Roll and calypso] [N]o matter what you call it, music is as good as it sounds. Music is an oral art. Until you hear it, it is not music and if it sounds good it is good.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Ellington Jazz Story On Tonight", St. Louis Globe-Democrat (May 8, 1957), p. 11C
“It's like an act of murder; you play with intent to commit something.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On jazz New York Herald Tribune (July 9, 1961).
“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 (1899–1974) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Where Is Jazz Going? Music Journal (1962) Reproduced in The Duke Ellington Reader, .
“Every man prays in his own language.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Section title and eponymous song of A Concert of Sacred Music (1965).
“How can anyone expect to be understood unless he presents his thoughts with complete honesty? This situation is unfair because it asks too much of the world. In effect, we say, "I don't dare show you what I am because I don't trust you for a minute but please love me anyway because I so need you to. And, of course, if you don't love me anyway, you're a dirty dog, just as I suspected, so I was right in the first place." 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 (1899–1974) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Program notes for A Concert of Sacred Music (1965).
“Fate is being kind to me. [...] Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2 Pulitzer Judges Resign in Protest", The New York Times (May 13, 1965), p. 41
“Roaming through the jungle of "oohs" 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 (1899–1974) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Music Is My Mistress (1973).
“The piano players were very important in the early days, and the great piano players were always on the East Coast; there never was anybody in the West who could play two notes. (By West I mean ; in those days there was no other West to speak of, west of that.) , who was mainly a writer and had more music published than anyone else, played piano like one of those high school teachers in Washington; as a matter of fact, high school teachers played better jazz. Among other things, his rhythm was unsteady; but that's the kind of piano the West was geared up to. On the other hand, the piano players on the East Coast did the most impossible things. If you dig up the early piano rolls or records by , you will hear the most beautiful and perfect performances. was a giant of those days, too. It is one of my great regrets that when the Lion used to come up to my house I didn't have a recording machine so that I could preserve some of those early performances of his.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From "Appreciations: The Encyclopedia of Jazz," transcription of a recording made by Ellington at Leonard Feather's request, in The Encyclopedia of Jazz (1960) by Feather, p. 14
“[Asked about his "fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young" comment] What else could I have said? [...] In the first place, I never do give any thought to prizes. I work and I write, and that's it. My reward is hearing what I have done, and unlike most composers, I can hear it immediately. That's why I keep these expensive gentlemen with me. And secondly, I'm hardly surprised that my kind of music is still without, let us say, official honor at home. Most Americans still take it for granted that European music–classical music, if you will–is the only really respectable kind. I remember, for example when Franklin Roosevelt died, practically no American music was played on the air in tribute to him. We were given a dispensation, I must admit. We did one radio program dedicated to him. But by and large, then as now, jazz was the kind of man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with. The word 'jazz' has been part of the problem [...] It never lost its association with those New Orleans bordellos. In the nineteen-twenties, 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. The music has become so integrated you can't tell one part from the other as far as color is concerned. Well, I don't have time time to worry about it. I've got too much music on my mind.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interviewed by Nat Hentoff for "This Cat Needs No Pulitzer Prize", The New York Times magazine (September 12, 1965), p. SM 64–65