No one else in our family was a professional musician so this took an enormous leap of faith on their part.
There's more to being a musician than just making music.
People always think I was just playing in a piano bar, but I only did that for about six months. The rest of the time I was playing in bands.
When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.
I never thought of myself as successful. I have just done what I love to do. I appreciate that I can continue working as a musician every day.
Walter Beasley is an anomaly: a successful performing musician who possesses the rare skill of understanding the musical process beyond the intuitive. This special ability enables Walter to communicate with aspiring musicians in a way that removes the sense of mystery that sometimes enshrouds our profession.
In most of the stuff that I've done over the years as a sideman, I wasn't really a session musician, because to me, a session musician is a guy who makes his living in the studio, and I never really did that.
One may imagine that a man who blew the trumpet for his living would be glad to play the violin for his amusement.
I set myself up to be a bass guitarist and bass players get a lot more work than people like me.
