Les Baxter Quotations

I've never believed in cheapening music by going according to what some people think is public taste.

Regardless of who originally made it popular, any hit song becomes a challenge to the ingenuity and imagination of other musicians and performers.

Under my contract with Capitol, I have complete freedom to do just about anything I want in my own way.

You know, they wanted to do a Broadway album and every show was kind of a bomb. There was no music at all.

I did the Broadway album unfortunately in a year when there were no hits.

I don't know what the problem with Capitol is. Some one's got to wake 'em up. Prod 'em a little bit.

I don't think the record company is aware of it. Because they just bury my albums and don't release them.

I was working all the time I was in college. I was working so much that I could hardly do my college work.

In a sense, a hit belongs to the person who made it popular, but if a tune is good enough to attain tremendous success, then it certainly deserves more than one version, one treatment, one approach.

I aim my arrangements at what will fit and colorfully frame the song in the best way possible.

I don't try to make 15 musicians sound like two each.

I've been down there 6 times and there's nothing like Brazilian percussion.

That was when the Spanish came in and conquered the Aztecs. I thought that was a clever thing.

Well, thats the secret of commerciality, a simple style and you stick with it.

When I want 30 musicians in the orchestra, I get 30.

But Gene Norman has an album out of me.

I love doing concert music.

I'm not an intellectual composer.

I write emotional music.

Any good music must be an innovation.