Count Basie famous quotes

04-17-2025

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
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
The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.
-- Count Basie

#Music #Real #Just Being
Keep on listening & tapping your feet.
-- Count Basie

#Music #Feet #Listening
If you play a tune and a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune.
-- Count Basie

#Music #Feet #Play
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
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
If a guy is gonna to play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.
-- Count Basie

#Play #Guy #Soul
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
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
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
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
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
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
If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!
-- Count Basie

#Music #Night #Play
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

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