Duke Ellington

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

I’m sure critics have their purpose, 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 he did.

To keep a band together you simply need a gimmick. The gimmick I use is to pay them money.

A goal is a dream with a finish line.

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

My attitude is never to be satisfied, never enough, never.

I think you have to leave a lot to the imagination!

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

I sing like I feel.

I never thought about being famous or rich. I just thought, Oh, I’ll get a nice little girl and go and play every night, and I’d be happy. And that worked for a while. But the little girl’s mother didn’t trust a guy with a horn.

If you’re trying to be hip, be hip!

Jazz is a feeling more than anything else.

Music is the shorthand of emotion

The guitar and the dog, in order not to be separated from man, have submitted themselves with resignation to the worst alterations of size and appearance.

When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn’t I couldn’t do my best.

I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don’t have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.

Just allow your feelings to go with the music and you’ll find yourself carried along by it fairly quickly.

Wes Montgomery played impossible things on the guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible.

May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.

Miles told me not to use vibrato because when you get old, you’re going to shake anyway.

Jazz musicians are the only workers who will put in a full shift for pay and then go somewhere else and continue to work for free.