Count Basie Quotes

“I'm saying: to be continued, until we meet again. Meanwhile, keep on listening and tapping your feet.”

— Count Basie

“Well, if you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!”

— Count Basie

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

— Count Basie

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

— 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.”

— Count Basie

“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

“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

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

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

— Count Basie

“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

“Keep on listening & tapping your feet.”

— Count Basie

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

— Count Basie

“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

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

— Count Basie

“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

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

“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

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

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

— Count Basie