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

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.'

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

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

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

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'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.