Count Basie isn't just a man, or even just a band. He's a way of life.
I got a poster from Columbia Records, and there's Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, Ellington, Count Basie - everybody in that poster has died, I'm the only one left. And great players like Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan, it's hard to believe they're gone because we were all so close. But I believe in the future and the tradition will go on.
Count Basie was college, but Duke Ellington was graduate school.
More than anybody else I’d like to thank Count Basie for teaching me how to perform.
Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.