Duke Ellington Quotes

There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly.

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

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

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

As Duke Ellington once said, “There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind.” In that sense, jazz and classical music are fundamentally the same. The pure joy one experiences listening to “good” music transcends questions of genre.

It doesn't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing

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

If it sounds good, it IS good.

Love is supreme and unconditional. Like is nice, but limited.

Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.

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

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

Bonj… êtes-vous arrangée par Duke Ellington ? demanda Colin…

Jazz is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country.

You can’t write music right unless you know how the man that’ll play it plays poker.

A problem is a chance for you to do your best

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. DUKE ELLINGTON

His greatest virtue, I think, was his honesty--not only to others but to himself...He demanded freedom of expression and lived in what we consider the most important of moral freedoms; freedom from hate, unconditionally; freedom from all self-pity (even throughout all the pain and bad news); freedom from fear of possibly doing something that might help another more than it might help himself; and freedom from that kind of pride that could make a man feel he was better than his brother or neighbor

It really was truth or consequences, and Billy went with truth. It was just incredible." Forsaking public prominence, Strayhorn found personal freedom in service to the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Now there might not be a Billy Strayhorn Orchestra. But there was a Billy Strayhorn.

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

...he went into the sitting room, put on a Duke Ellington record he had bought after seeing Gene Hackman sitting on the overnight bus in The Conversation to the sound of some fragile piano notes that were the loneliest Harry had ever heard.

I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline.

Monsieur Django, I presume?” Duke Ellington said, offering his hand. “Monsieur

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.' - Duke Ellington

Como decía Duke Ellington, en el mundo sólo existen dos tipos de música, la buena y la otra.

Dans la vie, l’essentiel est de porter sur tout des jugements à priori. Il apparaît, en effet, que les masses ont tort, et les individus toujours raison. Il faut se garder d’en déduire des règles de conduite : elles ne doivent pas avoir besoin d’être formulées pour qu’on les suive. Il y a seulement deux choses : c’est l’amour, de toutes les façons, avec des jolies filles, et la musique de la Nouvelle-Orléans ou de Duke Ellington. Le reste devrait disparaître, car le reste est laid, et les quelques pages de démonstration qui suivent tirent toute leur force du fait que l’histoire est entièrement vraie, puisque je l’ai imaginée d’un bout à l’autre. Sa réalisation matérielle proprement dite consiste essentiellement en une projection de la réalité, en atmosphère biaise et chauffée, sur un plan de référence irrégulièrement ondulé et présentant de la distorsion. On le voit, c’est un procédé avouable, s’il en fut.

The autumn sky was as clear as if it had been made that very morning. Perfect Duke Ellington weather. Though, of course, Duke Ellington would be right even for New Year’s Eve at an Antarctic base.

The thing in jazz that will get Bix Beiderbecke out of his bed at two o’clock in the morning, pick that cornet up and practice into the pillow for another two or three hours, or that would make Louis Armstrong travel around the world for fifty plus years non stop, just get up out of his sick bed, crawl up on the bandstand and play, the thing that would make Duke Ellington, the thing that would make Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Mary Lou Williams, the thing that would make all of these people give their lives for this, and they did give their lives, is that it gives us a glimpse into what America is going to be when it becomes itself. And this music tells you that it will become itself. And when you get a taste of that, there’s just nothing else you’re going to taste that’s as sweet.

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all time are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all time. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics, instead, are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers.

And I consider anybody a twerp who hasn’t read the greatest American short story, which is “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” by Ambrose Bierce. It isn’t remotely political. It is a flawless example of American genius, like “Sophisticated Lady” by Duke Ellington or the Franklin stove.

HARLEM STRIDE: RECOMMENDED LISTENING Duke Ellington, “Black Beauty,” October 1, 1928 James P. Johnson, “Carolina Shout,” October 18, 1921 Luckey Roberts, “Ripples of the Nile,” May 21, 1946 Willie “The Lion” Smith, “Sneakaway,” January 10, 1939 Art Tatum, “I Know That You Know,” April 2, 1949 Art Tatum, “Sweet Georgia Brown,” September 16, 1941 Art Tatum, “Tea for Two,” March 21, 1933 Fats Waller, “Alligator Crawl,” November 16, 1934 Fats Waller, “Dinah,” June 6, 1935 Fats Waller, “Viper’s Drag,” November 16, 1934

BIG BANDS AND THE SWING ERA: RECOMMENDED LISTENING Tommy Dorsey, “Opus One,” November 14, 1944 Duke Ellington, “Cotton Tail,” May 4, 1940 Duke Ellington, “Harlem Air Shaft,” July 22, 1940 Duke Ellington, “Take the ‘A’ Train,” February 15, 1941 Benny Goodman, “Sing, Sing, Sing,” January 16, 1938 Benny Goodman Trio, “After You’ve Gone,” July 13, 1935 Coleman Hawkins, “Body and Soul,” October 11, 1939 Fletcher Henderson, “New King Porter Stomp,” December 9, 1932 Glenn Miller, “In the Mood,” August 1, 1939 Artie Shaw, “Begin the Beguine,” July 24, 1938

It was on the 1958 tour that Ellington met Queen Elizabeth II in London. 'Struck speechless' by her grace, he responded with one of his most elegant gestures, writing with Strayhorn a piece called 'The Queen's Suite', then recording it and having a single copy of the album pressed for her alone.

В игре Джонни Ходжеса было что-то возвышенное, необъяснимое и абсолютно чувственное. Чувственность, так сказать, в чистом виде, освобожденная от всего телесного. Под воздействием музыки все углы комнаты округлились. Колен и Хлоя лежали теперь в центре некоей сферы. -- Что это? -- спросила Хлоя. -- The Mood to be Wooed, -- ответил Колен. -- Я это почувствовала, -- сказала Хлоя. -- А как доктор войдет в комнату такой формы?

Ascoltavo abitualmente Musical Caravan, lo show di Bill Cook, il sabato sera nella mia stanza buia. Il tema introduttivo era Caravan di Ellington, ritmi afro-orientali molto esotici, molto sofisticati, una cadenza da danza del ventre sulla quale, da sola, valeva la pena di sintonizzarsi; Caravan, nell'interpretazione del Duke, mi faceva sentire piacevolmente nell'illecito anche quando me ne stavo rannicchiato tra le lenzuola fresche di bucato di mia madre.

✓My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil. ✓What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man ✓What is a soul? It's like electricity - we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light a room ✓There are many spokes on the wheel of life. First, we're here to explore new possibilities. ✓I did it to myself. It wasn't society... it wasn't a pusher, it wasn't being blind or being black or being poor. It was all my doing. ✓What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man. ✓There's nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, 'If you believe in Me, you ain't going to have no troubles.' ✓Music to me is like breathing. I don't get tired of breathing, I don't get tired of music. ✓Just because you can't see anything , doesn't mean you should shut your eyes. ✓Don't go backwards - you've already been there. ✓Affluence separates people. Poverty knits 'em together. You got some sugar and I don't; I borrow some of yours. Next month you might not have any flour; well, I'll give you some of mine. ✓Sometimes my dreams are so deep that I dream that I'm dreaming. ✓I don't think any of us really knows why we're here. But I think we're supposed to believe we're here for a purpose. ✓I'd like to think that when I sing a song, I can let you know all about the heartbreak, struggle, lies and kicks in the ass I've gotten over the years for being black and everything else, without actually saying a word about it. ✓.There's nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, 'If you believe in Me, you ain't going to have no troubles.' ✓Other arms reach out to me, Other eyes smile tenderly, Still in peaceful dreams I see, The road leads back to you. ✓I can't help what I sound like. What I sound like is what i am. You know? I cannot be anything other that what I am. ✓Music is about the only thing left that people don't fight over. ✓My version of 'Georgia' became the state song of Georgia. That was a big thing for me, man. It really touched me. Here is a state that used to lynch people like me suddenly declaring my version of a song as its state song. That is touching. ✓Absence makes the heart grow fonder and tears are only rain to make love grow. ✓If you can play the blues, you can do anything. ✓I never considered myself part of rock 'n' roll. My stuff was more adult. It was more difficult for teenagers to relate to; my stuff was filled with more despair than anything you'd associate with rock 'n' roll. Since I couldn't see people dancing, I didn't write jitterbugs or twists. I wrote rhythms that moved me. My style requires pure heart singing. ✓It's like Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad. And you can tell when something is good. ✓Rhythm and blues used to be called race music. ... This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it. ✓Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human. ✓I cant retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. Youd have to remove the music from me surgically—like you were taking out my appendix. ✓The words to country songs are very earthy like the blues. They're not as dressed up and the people are very honest and say, 'Look, I miss you darlin', so I went out and got drunk in this bar.' That's the way you say it. Where in Tin Pan Alley they would say, 'Oh I missed you darling, so I went to this restaurant and I sat down and had a dinn

I want to tell you what I think the sex act is. I think it is like a lovely piece of music, conceived quietly in a background of mutual affection and understanding, made possible by instincts which lean toward each other as naturally as the sunflower slowly turning its lovely face to the sun. I think it is an aria of the sex symphony; an aria which begins beautifully certain of its rightness, moves with that certainty to a distinct tempo of feeling, sings itself happily, steadily, working, working, to a screaming, bursting climax of indescribable beauty and rapture and then throbs, spent and grateful in a re-dedication for the next movement of its perfection.

....but John Voelker, who met him when 'Anatomy of a Murder' was being shot in Michigan, viewed him through the clear eyes of a novelist and a judge and was struck by what he saw: 'I gradually felt drawn to him, not because I savor disillusion, but rather because I sensed that, in his case at least, '[his disillusion] masked great sensitivity and pride and even, however finely veiled, a vein of melancholy and loneliness.

Twentieth-century music has brought new complexity into rhythms, studio production, instrumentation, and a variety of other features that were uniform, less varied, or nonexistent in previous music. Modern compositions, even in narrow musicological terms, do not necessarily provide less depth than their predecessors. The songs of Jerome Kern, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, or the Beatles are arguably no less compositionally complex (and perhaps more complex) than the lieder of Schubert. Schubert wrote about 700 songs, most of which no one ever listens to or analyzes. Many of these songs are technically and compositionally undistinguished, and tend to be formulaic in their melodic treatment. Are "Bill," "Take the A Train," "Crepuscule with Nellie," and "A Day in the Life" really inferior or lesser products?

There were still exciting groups on the horizon: Ben Pollack, Isham Jones, Red Nichols, and Ted “Is Ev-rybody Happy?” Lewis provided an early training ground for many of the stars of the swing era, which was just around the corner. Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Jimmie Lunceford, and Chick Webb had started or were soon to start bands in the mid- to late 1920s, and Duke Ellington was already one of the most respected names in the industry.

And though there were far fewer radio opportunities for black bands than for their white counterparts, it was through remote broadcasts from the Cotton Club that the general public first heard of Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. Earl Hines had become a radio favorite during a long stand at the Grand Terrace in Chicago in the mid-1930s. And it was on a radio broadcast from the Reno Club in Kansas City that Count (William) Basie was discovered by jazz critic John Hammond, who helped launch Basie’s career.

Now Mrs. Retallack wondered how the effects of what she called "intellectual mathematically sophisticated music of both East and West" would appeal to plants. As program director for the American Guild of Organists, she chose choral preludes from Johann Sebastian Bach's Orgelbuchlein and the classical strains of the sitar, a less-com­ plicated Hindustani version of the south Indian veena, played by Ravi Shankar, the Bengali Brahmin. The plants gave positive evidence of liking Bach, since they leaned an unprecedented thirty-five degrees toward the preludes. But even this affirmation was far exceeded by their reaction to Shankar: in their straining to reach the source of the classical Indian music they bent more than halfway to the horizontal, at angles in excess of sixty degrees, the nearest one almost embracing the speaker. In order not to be swayed by her own special taste for the classical music of both hemispheres Mrs. Retallack, at the behest of hundreds of young people, followed Bach and Shankar with trials of folk and "country-western" music. Her plants seemed to produce no more reac­tion than those in the silent chamber. Perplexed, Mrs. Retallack could only ask: "Were the plants in complete harmony with this kind of earthy music or didn't they care one way or the other?" Jazz caused her a real surprise. When her plants heard recordings as varied as Duke Ellington's "Soul Call" and two discs by Louis Arm­ strong, 5 5 percent of the plants leaned fifteen to twenty degrees toward the speaker, and growth was more abundant than in the silent chamber. Mrs. Retallack also determined that these different musical styles markedly affected the evaporation rate of distilled water inside the chambers. From full beakers, fourteen to seventeen milliliters evapo­rated over a given time period in the silent chambers, twenty to twenty­ five milliliters vaporized under the influence of Bach, Shankar, and jazz; but, with rock, the disappearance was fifty-five to fifty-nine milliliters.

So heaven right? Do you just get to do what you love for all of eternity? Cause you know, you spend your life finding and trying your best to do what you love, some people have passions, others have hobbies, and some just like to sit and do nothing. So if you're into getting drunk at the bar with friends is that what you get to do in heaven - minus the hangover? I'm a musician, and I'd love to have an eternal jam session with Duke Ellington, but what about people who really enjoy screaming at rats? Would that be their version of heaven? Some people are sexually attracted to cars, will they just get to make out with a BMW for all eternity? Now let's say there's an unlimited all you can eat banquet in heaven of all the best food you can taste with your "heavenly" body. Would you still need to take a shit? I mean it's heaven that sounds rather unholy, maybe there'd just be food flavored gum... or maybe the shit would go down the heavenly sewer pipe and land on the heads of those in hell. Just an idea... I mean who the heck really knows? Maybe heaven is just getting to perpetually have the feeling of having just taken a fresh sip of water after being in the desert for a week. Or maybe it's the perpetual feeling of getting the text from your ex that they want you back. In the meantime, let's drink a nice hot cup of existentialism!

Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Paul Whiteman, Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra, Lionel Hampton, the Mills Brothers, Woody Herman, and Nat King Cole. “Mona Lisa, men have named you,

Mari nods. The record ends, the automatic turntable lifts the needle, and the tone arm drops onto its rest. The bartender approaches the player to change records. He carefully lifts the platter and slips it into its jacket. Then he takes out the next record, examines its surface under a light, and sets it on the turntable. He presses a button and the needle descends to the record. Faint scratching. Then Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” begins to play. Harry Carney’s languorous bass clarinet performs solo. The bartender’s unhurried movements give the place its own special time flow.

Bechet even briefly played with Duke, and Ellington would take the counterpoint, romance, and beats of New Orleans music and build a compositional cathedral.

We have heard the stories: Duke Ellington would say, “I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.” 5 Tennessee Williams felt that “apparent failure” motivated him. He said it “sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.” Many have heard that Thomas Edison told his assistant, incredulous at the inventor’s perseverance through jillions of aborted attempts to create an incandescent light bulb, “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” 6 “Only one look is enough. Hardly one copy would sell here. Hardly one. Hardly one. Many thanks . . .” read part of the rejection letter that Gertrude Stein received from a publisher in 1912.7 Sorting through dross, artists, entrepreneurs, and innovators have learned to transform askew strivings. The telegraph, the device that underlies the communications revolution, was invented by a painter, Samuel F. B. Morse, who turned the stretcher bars from what he felt was a failed picture into the first telegraph device. The 1930s RKO screen-test response “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Balding. Can dance a little” was in reference to Fred Astaire. We hear more stories from commencement speakers—from J. K. Rowling to Steve Jobs to Oprah Winfrey—who move past bromides to tell the audience of the uncommon means through which they came to live to the heights of their capacity. Yet the anecdotes of advantages gleaned from moments of potential failure are often considered cliché or insights applicable to some, not lived out by all.

The sound of their evolving jazz dialect formed a cultural fulcrum that no outraged protester or government-issued desegregation order could begin to achieve.

musical stage for more than half of that century, forging melodic models that hadn’t existed and elevating jazz into a pulsating force for spontaneity and freedom.

The Negro,” Duke explained, “is not merely a singing and dancing wizard but a loyal American in spite of his social position. I want to tell America how the Negro feels about it.” And he did, as did his friends Armstrong and Basie.

If lots more of us loved each other, we’d solve lots more problems. And then this world would be a gasser.

Race, for once, fell away as America listened rapt.

I can rest on my laurels. I’ve stirred up enough crap in my time and I’ll live with it and see how somebody else deals with it. But then there’s that word “retiring.” I can’t retire until I croak. There’s carping about us being old men. The fact is, I’ve always said, if we were black and our name was Count Basie or Duke Ellington, everybody would be going, yeah yeah yeah. White rock and rollers apparently are not supposed to do this at our age. But I’m not here just to make records and money. I’m here to say something and to touch other people, sometimes in a cry of desperation: “Do you know this feeling?

As we’ve said before, they’re attempting to develop a repertoire that matches the aesthetics and ideology of National Socialism. They want ‘pure’ German content, drawn from national fairy tales, and legends—anything that deals with the glorification of the fatherland, or the politics of race. They’ve targeted the new jazz out of America because it’s linked with Africans, but the music is so popular, Goebbels can’t keep the people away from the swing bands, so they pretend it’s German. They recently broadcast Duke Ellington’s ‘Caravan,’ repressing its origin. They rewrote Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus with Judas rebirthed as a powerful military dictator.” “They’re trying to erase reality,” Ida said, incredulously.

Cabin in the Sky, in 1943. Based on the story of a drunken gambler given a second chance to redeem himself or face the fiery pits, the movie featured a bevy of Black actors with breathtaking vocals, vivacious dancing co-choreographed by the legendary Katherine Dunham, and the pulsating music of jazz great Duke Ellington and his band.

They also learned to be outrageous. They acted out pretend fights, threw Nazi salutes, dressed like a cleaning woman, imitated a crippled walk, mooned the audience, played prostrate from the floor, and jumped unpredictably into the crowd.

We started to dance. Florence was remarkably good. She clung to me like jello to a moulding tin, following my lead as though we'd practiced the mambo at Arthur Murray's for ten years. When the music stopped we walked over to the stand. The leader smiled widely and hit three questioning chords on his guitar. 'Please play, "I Got It Bad—"' 'And that ain't good!' He finished for me. 'Play it.' I opened my wallet. The smallest I had was a ten-dollar bill. I gave it to him. 'Play it ten times.' 'Yes, sir!' He slammed his foot down and they went into it.

The Orson Welles Almanac was a format that intrigued Welles throughout the early 1940s: it consisted of everything from odd facts to jazz (pianist Meade Lux Lewis was a guest in 1941 when the show was called Orson Welles Theater; Duke Ellington in 1944). But it was heavy with dramatized short stories, such pieces as The Apple Tree and The Hitchhiker, both of which Welles would do again on The Mercury

Robert Patterson. One day in New York in 1974 I got a call from Robert and his wife, Sybille, asking me to come to the Plaza Hotel for drinks and dinner. When I got there, they explained that Duke (Ellington) was terribly sick and that he was going to call in a few minutes to talk to Robert about canceling his upcoming tour in the United Kingdom. We began our dinner, and the call came. Then Robert passed the phone to me. I remember standing near the long velvet curtains by the window, looking out at the lights in Central Park twinkling through the trees. Duke’s voice was weak, but he spoke to me so kindly, and asked me about my upcoming record, about my touring. How did I like working in Europe? Did I have family? Wasn’t I glad I was a musician so I could lead this kind of life doing what I loved and making people happy? The next week Duke died, never having left the hospital.

Brother. I’ll tell you,” Clive said. “I love Jesus the way Mouse loved Kelly. Unabashedly. I love Jesus like I love Duke Ellington and the great Satchmo, like I love the music of Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell. I love Jesus like I love the opening paragraph of One Hundred Years of Solitude and all the books of P.G. Wodehouse. I love Jesus like Elvis loved his momma. For in Jesus is forgiveness, love, joy, and happiness.” Clive lifted his beer as if to toast them all.

I'm a fan first. I believed Duke Ellington when he said there's no bad music, just some of it is presented badly. As a kid, hanging around Church Street, the presentation of music was so powerful, I couldn't help but jump for joy. I had discovered art, or truth, or whatever you want to call it; I had seen a light I'd follow forever.

As Duke Ellington put it, Henderson "was liberal in giving away his ideas to people. So liberal, in fact, that it is difficult to recognize the original Fletcher Henderson through his flock of imitators.

Retire? What could I retire to? What else am I going to play with? – Duke Ellington

She doesn’t care for his movies and couldn’t care less about his personal life (she’s from the none-of-my-business generation), and was “a moldy fig” in her teen years—that’s what a group of particular jazz enthusiasts called themselves in Manhattan at that time; they liked Dixieland jazz, pure jazz, not the Duke Ellington stuff.