Duke Ellington

“Playing "Bop" is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing. Look (August 10, 1954).”

“My band is my instrument more than the piano. From an interview with Richard O. Boyer , as cited in "The Hot Bach”

“I know what sounds well on a trombone and I know what sounds well on a trumpet and they are not the same. [...] I know what Tricky Sam can play on a trombone and I know what Lawrence Brown can play on a trombone and they are not the same either.”

“[Y]ou've got to write with certain men in mind. You write just for their abilities and natural tendencies and give them places where they do their best”

“You can't write music right [...] until you know how the man that'll play it plays poker.”

“[Expressing a liking for trains] Folks can't rush you until you get off.”

“As Bach says [...] if you ain't got a left hand, you ain't worth a hoot in hell.”

“[Sights enabling musical inspiration] The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician [...] Things like the old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night, or something someone said long ago. I remember I once wrote a sixty”

“I think of music sometimes in terms of color [...] and [in a furnace] I like to see the flames licking yellow in the dark and then pulsing down to a kind of red glow.”

“It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing). Song title (1932).”