Count Basie
All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel... and that's what I've been doing all my life.Collection: Travel
I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.
If you play a tune and a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune.
I'm saying: to be continued, until we meet again. Meanwhile, keep on listening and tapping your feet.
I decided that I would be one of the biggest new names; and I actually had some little fancy business cards printed up to announce it, 'Count Basie. Beware, the Count is Here.'
Well, if you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!
Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.
The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.Collection: Music
Learn to deal with the valleys and the hills will take care of themselves.Collection: Valleys
I never thought innovation as such was very important. Not when you have to think about it... If you're going to come up with a new direction or a really new way to do something, you'll do it by just playing your stuff and letting it ride. The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.Collection: Real
It's the way you play that makes it . . . Play like you play. Play like you think, and then you got it, if you're going to get it. And whatever you get, that's you, so that's your story.Collection: Thinking
If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!Collection: Music
Keep on listening & tapping your feet.Collection: Music
I just think swing is a matter of some good things put together that you can really pat your foot by. I can't define it beyond that.Collection: Thinking
I was always willing to say, "Let's see what happens," when something came up that looked like it might help me get a little closer to where I wanted to be . . .Collection: Littles
I think the band can really swing when it swings easy, when it can just play along like you are cutting butter.Collection: Cutting
I got everything I wanted. When I was young in Kansas City, I knew nothing about Frank Sinatra, Billy Eckstine, Ella Fitzgerald, of all those concert halls, of all those countries. I did not know what it was like to direct a band... All I wanted was to be big, to be in show-business, and to travel...and that's what I've been doing all my life.Collection: Country
All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel ... and that's what I've been doing all my life.Collection: Bigs
If a guy is gonna to play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.Collection: Play
I don't dig that two-beat jive the New Orleans cats play. My boys and I have to have four heavy beats to the bar and no cheating.Collection: Music
Freddie Green has been my right arm for thirty years. And if he leaves the band one day, I'll probably leave with him.Collection: Years
Oscar Peterson plays the best ivory box I've ever heard.Collection: Play
I'll always remember when I first heard Lester [Young]. I'd never heard anyone like him before. He was a stylist with a different sound. A sound I'd never heard before or since. To be honest with you, I didn't much like it at first.Collection: Sound