A Quote by Billy Eckstine

When you're playing music, say for instance, you're playing a part of the band and you're looking at your music, your horn is down into the stand. This way, it's up and it goes right on out to the audience, you know?
When you're playing music, say for instance, you're playing a part of the band and you're looking at your music, your horn is down into the stand. This way, it's
I enjoy playing the band as the band. I 'be' the whole band and I'm playing the drums, I'm playing the guitar, I'm playing the saxophone. To me, the most wonderful thing about playing music is that.
Everything I do, I'm always playing music. When I wake up in the morning, I'm playing music. When I'm showering, I've got music playing. When I go to the field, music is playing.
I enjoy playing the band as the band. I be the whole band and Im playing the drums, Im playing the guitar, Im playing the saxophone. To me, the most wonderful thing about playing music is that.
Of what use is the universe? What is the practical application of a million galaxies? Yet just because it has no use, it has a use - which may sound like a paradox, but is not. What, for instance, is the use of playing music? If you play to make money, to outdo some other artist, to be a person of culture, or to improve your mind, you are not really playing - for your mind is not on the music. You don't swing. When you come to think of it, playing or listening to music is a pure luxury, an addiction, a waste of valuable time and money for nothing more than making elaborate patterns of sound.
When I'm representing my music live I think of it very much in a rock band sense. When I first started doing festivals in the 90s there really weren't other DJs playing the stages I was playing. So I felt I was being afforded an opportunity to kind of make a statement about what DJ music can be live. In the 90s, if you were a DJ you were in the dance tent, and you were playing house music and techno music. There was no such thing as a DJ - a solo DJ - on a stage, after a rock band and before another rock band: that just didn't happen.
I think all of us set out to try and reach as many people. That's the whole point of being in a band: trying to get your music out there. So, any opportunity to do that, within reason. We're informed about where our music is going to be used; we get to say yes or no. There are things we can turn down, and there are things we can agree to. When it comes to movies and stuff like that, it's great for us. I don't think it's selling out. Maybe 10 or 20 years ago it was seen as selling out, but nowadays I think it's the only way to get your music out there.
I feel like there's not this black-and-white division between concert hall music and music that bands play in a bar. I don't know if this was ever truly the case, but I don't feel that I need to decide between playing for a sit-down, totally silent audience and playing for a bunch of noisy, drunk people in a bar. What I do with the group is somewhere in between.
I wasn't playing the music, the music was playing me... and once that went away, and I had the feeling I was playing music, I had to stop. The need to go onstage and get my brain flattened every night left me, and what I didn't wanna do is go onstage and perpetrate a fraud... You cannot fool an audience.
The church we grew up playing at was not one of those churches known for its music, but it was just this all-around energy that would be happening because, at the same time we'd be playing in church, we'd be playing in the city jazz band under Reggie Edwards.
You can't think and play. If you think about what you're playing the playing becomes stilted. You have to just focus on the music I feel, concenctrate on the music, focus on what you're playing and let the playing come out. Once you start thinking about doing this or doing that, it's not good. What you are doing is like a language. You have a whole collection of musical ideas and thoughts that you've accumulated through your musical history plus all the musical history of the whole world and it's all in your subconscious and you draw upon it when you play
We're not a band because we're trying to be the Mother Teresas of the music industry, out to serve everybody. We're a band first and foremost because we love playing pop music.
What I try to get beyond is playing music at people and, instead, to play music with people because audience members are constantly part of the experience. What they say in their body language, what they say in their eyes, what they sing with me... it's an 'us,' and there's a communication that's like... it's like church, man.
I want to travel around the country and make my living playing music. I also try to behave in a way that I would appreciate as a music fan. That's how we conduct ourselves, be it in writing music or playing it live.
I brought the music out to L.A., and the producer Tommy LaPuma heard it and he said - "Man, I love it. Let's do it. Let's record it." I said, "Okay, where's the band?" He said, "We don't have a band. We want it to sound exactly like your demo." I said, "Well, I played all the instruments on the demo." You do that when you're making demos. You got your guitar, you got your sax. He said, "Well, I want it to sound just like that, so get all your instruments out here." So I ended up playing all the instruments.
I think the world is very much embracing this whole concept of musicians going out and playing their instruments and playing music for music as opposed to music that has something to do with some form of image or imagery.
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