Count Basie Quotes

19 quotes in 278 categories

• If you play a tune and a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune.
• Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.
• Keep on listening & tapping your feet.
• The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.
• If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!
• 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…
• Freddie Green has been my right arm for thirty years. And if he leaves the band one day, I'll probably leave with him.
• 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…
• I think the band can really swing when it swings easy, when it can just play along like you are cutting butter,
• 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…
• 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…
• If a guy is gonna to play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.
• 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…
• 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…
• 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…
• 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.
• Well, if you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!
• I'm saying: to be continued, until we meet again. Meanwhile, keep on listening and tapping your feet.

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