"[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-four-bar piece about a memory of when I was a little boy in bed and heard a man whistling on the street outside, his footsteps echoing away. Things like these may be more important to a musician than technique."
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Composers from the United StatesMusicians from the United StatesJazz musiciansPianists from the United StatesConductors from the United States
Original Language: English
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From an interview with Richard O. Boyer, as cited in "The Hot Bach - I", The New Yorker (June 16, 1944; print edition: June 24, 1944)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington
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Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz composer, pianist, and band leader. Although a pivotal figure in the history of jazz, in the opinion of Gunther Schuller and Barry Kernfeld, "the most significant composer of the genre", Ellington himself embraced the phrase "beyond category", considering it a liberating principle, and referring to his music as part of the more general category of American Music.
24 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Duke Ellington →
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