Tony Bennett

I still insist that American performers are the best performers in the world.

If you follow your passions, you’ll never work a day in your life.

One of the advantages of growing older is you learn what to leave out.

Just give a drum roll, announce my name and I come out and sing. I have a contract that says I’m a singer. So I sing.

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

It is this tendency to play with manic enthusiasm on every possible occasion that distinguishes the amateur Jazz musician from the professional.

Judy Garland was the singer I most wanted to sound like then, not to copy, but to get some of her soul and purity. A wonderful young voice.

A beat is a moment in the life a groove.

[moving to Las Vegas] It was sort of like a man getting married – you don’t have to go out looking for girls, you’ve got your girl with you. I could go to casinos any time I had money and wanted to, so I actually went less.

Being a musician is what I do, but it’s not what I am.

Last time I saw Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take one hand and put the other on it, and he comes down with one note. And it was the greatest note I ever heard in my life.

Music must be an innovation.

He’s not a performer, he’s not a composer, he’s not even a musician, but Norman Granz is Mr. Jazz.

Jazz is about being in the moment.

I have been doing music all my life so everyday when I get up I expect music will be part of it.

All of the technique doesn’t matter… only if the feeling is right.

I felt a responsibility to present a viable alternative to the popular electric sound.

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.

Trios offer simple instrumentation, but the orchestral possibilities are so profound.