Duke Ellington

It’s all music.

Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

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.

Critics get a little carried away with what someone should have done, rather than what he did.

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

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

Once in a while, the thumb that fits over the neck of the guitar kinda bothers me a little bit, but not that much yet. I figure in time I won’t do much because of my age.

Music is the most interesting thing in the world.

It is Jazz’s very nature to change, to develop and adapt to the circumstances of its environment.

Even when you write it, someone’s got to play it. So if you can play it and bypass all the rest of the things, you’re still doing as great as someone that has spent forty years trying to find out how to do that. I’m really pro-human beings, pro-expression of everything.

If you already have a piece of music ingrained in your body, why would you not play it?

Your horn is your passport to the world.

Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man and bring tears to the eyes of woman.

They’re singing your praises while stealing your phrases.

The beauty of Jazz is that it’s malleable. People address it to suit their own personalities.

The way a band works is a metaphor for all sorts of collaborative and larger enterprises that people do.

One very important thing I learned from Monk was his complete dedication to music. That was his reason for being alive. Nothing else mattered except music, really.

The true musician is to bring light into people’s hearts.

It is better to be felt than to be heard.

Is there a meaning to music? Yes. Can you state in so many words what the meaning is? No.