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

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.

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

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.'

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.

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

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