Music with Ease > Jazz Quotes > Count Basie Quotes

"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

" 'Count don't do nothin'. But it sure sounds good."
-- One of Basie's band members on Basie's use of silence, spareness and playing the minimum amount of notes in his piano solos for the maximum emotional and rhythmic effect

"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

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


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