Count Basie Quotes

• If you play a tune and a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune.

  Count Basie

  Music, Play, Feet

  52 Copy quote

• Learn to deal with the valleys and the hills will take care of themselves.

  Count Basie

  Valleys, Care, Hills

  61 Copy quote

• The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

  Count Basie

  Music, Real, Just Being

  50 Copy quote

• 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.

  Count Basie

  Real, Thinking, Innovation

  64 Copy quote

• 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.

  Count Basie

  Thinking, Play, Stories

  Count Basie, Albert Murray (1985). “Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie”, Plume

  57 Copy quote

• Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

  Count Basie

  Funny, Music, Way

  69 Copy quote

• If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

  Count Basie

  Music, Night, Play

  33 Copy quote

• Keep on listening & tapping your feet.

  Count Basie

  Music, Feet, Listening

  29 Copy quote

• 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.

  Count Basie

  Thinking, Swings, Feet

  20 Copy quote

• 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 . . .

  Count Basie

  Littles, Might, Helping

  29 Copy quote

• I think the band can really swing when it swings easy, when it can just play along like you are cutting butter.

  Count Basie

  Cutting, Thinking, Swings

  Count Basie, Albert Murray (1985). “Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie”, Plume

  26 Copy quote

• 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.

  Count Basie

  Country, Cities, Kansas City

  31 Copy quote

• 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.

  Count Basie

  Bigs, Shows, Wanted

  24 Copy quote

• If a guy is gonna to play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.

  Count Basie

  Play, Guy, Soul

  22 Copy quote

• 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.

  Count Basie

  Music, Cheating, Cat

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Count Basie

  Real, Play, Tunes

  12 Copy quote

• Freddie Green has been my right arm for thirty years. And if he leaves the band one day, I'll probably leave with him.

  Count Basie

  Years, One Day, Band

  11 Copy quote

• Oscar Peterson plays the best ivory box I've ever heard.

  Count Basie

  Play, Ivory, Oscars

  8 Copy quote

• 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.'

  Count Basie

  Names, Would Be, Cards

  Count Basie, Albert Murray (1985). “Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie”, Plume

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  Count Basie

  Sound, Different, Stylist

  9 Copy quote

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