A Quote by Miles Davis

[Prince] could very well be the Duke Ellington of Rock 'n' Roll. — © Miles Davis
[Prince] could very well be the Duke Ellington of Rock 'n' Roll.
My mom loved rock n' roll. My father hated it. We couldn't play it when he was around. He liked classical music and Duke Ellington.
[I wanted] to play the clarinet well so I could be in Duke Ellington's band, but that's now impossible.
No matter what though, there's always rock & roll. There's rock 'n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock & roll in pop music, there's rock 'n' roll in soul, there's rock 'n' roll in country. When you see people dress and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock & roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star.
As for my band, well, my mentors were Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Jimmie Lunceford, and no one had a band more smartly dressed than Duke.
There's rock n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock n' roll in pop music, there's rock n' roll in soul, there's rock n' roll in country. When you see people dress, and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock n' roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star, you know?
Prince got some Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix and Sly in him, also, even Little Richard. He's a mixture of all those guys and Duke Ellington.
I have absolutely no interest in rock and roll. I'm just being David Bowie. Mick Jagger is rock and roll. I mean, I go out and my music is roughly the format of rock and roll, I use the chord changes of rock and roll, but I don't feel I'm a rock and roll artist. I'd be a terrible rock artist, absolutely ghastly.
I like to think Duke Ellington would probably embrace a fragrance as well.
My dad was into jazz, so there was a lot of Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington playing in the house, but also a lot of soul, such as Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald, while my mum liked Prince and Diana Ross.
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.
Duke Ellington was famous for hs very original harmonic patterns.
Good rock 'n' roll is something that makes you feel alive. It's something that's human, and I think that most music today isn't. ... To me good rock 'n' roll also encompasses other things, like Hank Williams and Charlie Mingus and a lot of things that aren't strictly defined as rock 'n' roll. Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.
I could turn on my radio in the morning when I was getting dressed for school and hear Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman and think this is the music. Now that music is art. Ellington is art. At that time it was just what you heard on the radio. Cole Porter was just a guy who wrote pretty songs and Billie Holliday would sing them.
Rock and roll is not an instrument. Rock and roll isn't even a style of music. Rock and roll is a spirit that's been going since the blues, jazz, bebop, soul, R&B, heavy metal, punk rock and, yes, hip-hop.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is marketing. You've got a bunch of faceless people in a back room who trademark a name that sounds very official. Well, if you had thought of it first, you would have been the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I remember the night when I was playing at Birdland, and Duke Ellington walked in wearing that cap of his and with all his elegance. The Duke then came backstage, and I was there with my band. That's the one thing I miss.
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