28 Quotes by Count Basie

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

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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