Music with Ease > Jazz Quotes > Duke Ellington Quotes

"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

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

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

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

"It's like an act of murder; you play with intent to commit something."
-- Duke Ellington, on swing

"I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King's son."
-- Duke Ellington, referring to the British royal, George, duke of Kent""

"Count Basie was college but Duke Ellington was graduate school."
-- Clark Terry

"I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!"
-- 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


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Quotable Jazz

Jazz musicians are well known for strong opinions and a major sense of humor.

Quotable Jazz collects the best of these often funny, sometimes outrageous, always enlightening quotes. It's all here -- the vaudevillian ribaldry of Jelly Roll Morton, the warm humor of Louis Armstrong, the insight of Duke Ellington, the acerbic views of Miles Davis. These greats and many more, both well-known and unsung sidemen, hold forth on a variety of topics including women, race, the music business, the art of improvisation, and that eternal question, "what is jazz and where is it going?"

Quotable Jazz is a one-of-a-kind reference that's as essential to your jazz collection as Coltrane's Giant Steps or Miles' Kind of Blue.

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