Duke Ellington Quotes about Music

There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.

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.

A goal is a dream with a finish line.

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.

The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.

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

If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!

There is no art without intention.

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

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

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

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.

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!

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

What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.

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

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?

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

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