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. (Boris Vian)
I keep reverting (to Duke Ellington), he to me is the greatest ever and my favorite jazz philosopher, as such. View quote
Cannonball Adderley
When I was young, I never bought records because my brother Joseph played saxophone and had a record player. I loved listening to his records: The Dorsey Brothers, Duke Ellington, all the big American jazz bands, and vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald, Ernestine Anderson, and Kitty White, a singer from the US who was a friend of Nina Simone. Nobody in America seems to know about her, but she was quite popular in South Africa. View quote
Miriam Makeba
He could very well be the Duke Ellington of Rock 'n' Roll. View quote
Miles Davis
I do very few standards. Hardly any. Other people's tunes that I do are usually obscure tunes, for the most part, although I do a couple of Duke Ellington tunes that are well known. View quote
Mose Allison
A few years later, my Uncle David took me to the Earle Theatre to hear Duke Ellington. View quote
David Amram
Duke Ellington was famous for hs very original harmonic patterns. View quote
Lawrence Welk
Ellington is a writer and arranger, as well as a musician and leader. He does movie sound tracks. View quote
Norman Granz
I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone. View quote
Steve Lacy
Contrary to several conflicting stories, I got the name "Count" right in Kansas City in 1936 while at the Reno Club. I was known as Bill Basie at that time. One night, while we were broadcasting, the announcer called me to the microphone for those usual few words of introduction. He commented that Bill Basie was a rather ordinary name, and further that there were a couple of well-known bandleaders named Earl Hines and Duke Ellington. Then he said, "Bill, I think I'll call you Count Basie from now on. Is that all right with you?" I thought he was kidding, shrugged my shoulders and replied, "OK." Well that was the last time I was ever introduced as Bill Basie. From then on, it was Count Basie, and I never did lose that nickname. It's funny the way those things will stick. View quote
Count Basie
From New Orleans and the back roads of the Mississippi Delta to Harlem and Chicago, black musicians set enduring and distinctive standards for American creativity. The blues of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, the gospel of Mahalia Jackson, the jazz of Duke Ellington, and the soul of Marvin Gaye claim fans of all ages from around the world. The trumpeting genius of Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie illustrate the exceptional musicianship so prominent in various genres of African-American music. (George W. Bush)
Miles said he looked on his need for constant change as a curse. However, Miles, along with Duke Ellington, in terms of looking for models of how you strategize with a band, have been there constantly in the background for me. Not the Beatles as a construct for a group, not Led Zeppelin, not the Floyd. My guides have always been Miles and Duke. View quote
Miles Davis
I got a poster from Columbia Records, and there's Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, Ellington, Count Basie - everybody in that poster has died, I'm the only one left. And great players like Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan, it's hard to believe they're gone because we were all so close. But I believe in the future and the tradition will go on. View quote
Dave Brubeck
Do you think Duke Ellington didn't listen to Debussy? Louis Armstrong loved opera, did you know that? Name me a jazz pianist who wasn't influenced by European music! View quote
Dave Brubeck
It's a spirit that was given me and the relationships and meeting all these great people, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong; through Max I met a lot of people too. My first album was with Benny Carter. View quote
Abbey Lincoln
The Metropole Orchestra is like Count Basie or Duke Ellington with strings... it's strings that swing. Strings that swing like Dizzy Gillespie... keep swinging, baby. And when you have all of that special excellence of the Metropole Orchestra, then your music just flies - it soars in a way that's really magical. View quote
Al Jarreau
If I were to put on Barbra Streisand and Duke Ellington, one might say the combination isn't good. View quote
Norman Granz
When I got through, Duke Ellington stood up and started the applause. View quote
Ruth Brown
I fell in love with jazz when I was 12 years old from listening to Duke Ellington and hearing a lot of jazz in New York on the radio. View quote
Steve Lacy
Not to dismiss Gershwin, but Gershwin is the chip; Ellington was the block. View quote
Joni Mitchell
As Duke Ellington once said, "the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Elkton." [...] About that Wellington guy, I wouldn't know. Ellington, yes. As for that Eton business - well, I married my first wife in Elkton, and I always hated the place. It musta stuck. (Babe Ruth)
You know, I always when people ask me, like, what is my most favorite song, I quote Duke Ellington, when they would ask him, what's his favorite composition? And I say, I haven't written it yet. Because, you know, there are different songs for different occasions. View quote
Stevie Wonder
Lambert, who admired Duke Ellington and proclaimed his harmonic roots in Frederick Delius (who in his turn had taken them from Debussy), was a fearless reconciler of what the academies and Tin Pan Alley alike presumed to be eternally opposed...In 1972, on a plane from New York to Toronto, I found myself sitting next to Duke Ellington, who spoke almost with tears in his eyes of the stature of Lambert. View quote
Constant Lambert
The three great moments of my life had to be the concerts of Ellington in 1938, Dizzy in '48, and Ella in '52. View quote
Boris Vian