AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SPRING, 2016
VOLUME TWO NUMBER THREE
WAYNE SHORTER
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
LEO SMITH
March 26-April 1
AHMAD JAMAL
April 2-8
DIONNE WARWICK
April 9-15
LEE MORGAN
April 16-22
BILL DIXON
April 23-29
SAM COOKE
April 30-May 6
MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS
May 7-13
BILLY HARPER
May 14-20
SISTER ROSETTA THARPE
May 21-27
QUINCY JONES
May 28-June 3
BESSIE SMITH
June 4-10
ROBERT JOHNSON
June 11-17
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/quincy-jones-mn0000378624/biography
QUINCY JONES
(b. March 14, 1933)
Artist Biography by Mark Deming
In a musical career that has spanned seven decades, Quincy Jones has earned his reputation as a renaissance man of American music. Jones
has distinguished himself as a bandleader, a solo artist, a sideman, a
songwriter, a producer, an arranger, a film composer, and a record label
executive, and outside of music, he's also written books, produced
major motion pictures, and helped create television series. And a quick
look at a few of the artists Jones has worked with suggests the remarkable diversity of his career -- Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Lesley Gore, Michael Jackson, Peggy Lee, Ray Charles, Paul Simon, and Aretha Franklin.
Jones
was born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 14, 1933. When he was still a
youngster, his family moved to Seattle, WA, and he soon developed an
interest in music. In his early teens, Jones began learning the trumpet, and started singing with a local gospel group. By the time he graduated from high school in 1950, Jones
had displayed enough promise to win a scholarship to Boston-based music
school Schillinger House (which later became known as the Berklee
School of Music). After a year at Schillinger, Jones relocated to New York City, where he found work as an arranger, writing charts for Count Basie, Cannonball Adderley, Tommy Dorsey, and Dinah Washington, among others. In 1953, Jones scored his first big break as a performer; he was added to the brass section of Lionel Hampton's orchestra, where he found himself playing alongside jazz legends Art Farmer and Clifford Brown. Three years later, Dizzy Gillespie tapped Jones to play in his band, and later in 1956, when Gillespie was invited to put together a big band of outstanding international musicians, Diz chose Quincy to lead the ensemble. Jones also released his first album under his own name that year, a set for ABC-Paramount appropriately entitled This Is How I Feel About Jazz.
In 1957, Jones moved to Paris in order to study with Nadia Boulanger,
an expatriate American composer with a stellar track record in
educating composers and bandleaders. During his sojourn in France, Jones took a job with the French record label Barclay, where he produced and arranged sessions for Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour, as well as traveling American artists, including Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughan. Jones'
work for Barclay impressed the management at Mercury Records, a
American label affiliated with the French imprint, and in 1961, he was
named a vice president for Mercury, the first time an African-American
had been hired as an upper-level executive by a major U.S. recording
company. Jones scored one of his first major pop successes when he produced and arranged "It's My Party" for teenage vocalist Lesley Gore, which marked his first significant step away from jazz into the larger world of popular music. (Jones also freelanced for other labels on the side, including arranging a number of memorable Atlantic sides for Ray Charles.) In 1963, Jones
began exploring what would become a fruitful medium for him when he
composed his first film score for Sidney Lumet's controversial drama The
Pawnbroker; he would go on to write music for 33 feature films,
including In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night, Bob & Carol &
Ted & Alice, and The Getaway. In 1964, Jones' work with Count Basie led him to arrange and conduct sessions for Frank Sinatra's album It Might as Well Be Swing, recorded in collaboration with Basie and his orchestra; he also worked with Sinatra and Basie again as an arranger for the award-winning Sinatra at the Sands set, and would produce and arrange one of Sinatra's last albums, L.A. Is My Lady, in 1984.
While Jones
maintained a busy schedule as a composer, producer, and arranger
through the 1960s, he also re-emerged as a recording artist in 1969 with
the album Walking in Space, which found Jones
recasting his big-band influences within the framework of the budding
fusion movement and the influences of contemporary rock, pop, and
R&B sounds. The album was a commercial and critical success, and
kick started Jones'
career as a recording artist. At the same time, he began working more
closely with contemporary pop artists, producing sessions for Aretha Franklin and arranging strings for Paul Simon's There Goes Rhymin' Simon, and while Jones continued to work with jazz artists, many hard-and-fast jazz fans began to accuse Jones of turning his back on the genre, though Jones always contended his greatest allegiance was to African-American musical culture rather than any specific style. (Jones did, however, make one major jazz gesture in 1991, when he persuaded Miles Davis to revisit the classic Gil Evans arrangements from Miles Ahead, Sketches of Spain, and Porgy and Bess for that year's Montreux Jazz Festival; Jones coordinated the concert and led the orchestra, and it proved to be one of the last major events for the ailing Davis, who passed on a few months later.)
In 1974, Jones suffered a life-threatening brain aneurysm, and while he made a full recovery, he also made a decision to cut back on his schedule to spend more time with his family. While Jones may have had fewer projects on his plate in the late '70s and early '80s, they tended to be higher profile from this point on; he produced major chart hits for the Brothers Johnson and Rufus & Chaka Khan, and his own albums grew into all-star productions in which Jones orchestrated top players and singers in elaborate pop-R&B confections on sets like Body Heat, Sounds...And Stuff Like That!!, and The Dude. Jones' biggest mainstream success, however, came with his work with Michael Jackson; Jones produced his breakout solo album, Off the Wall, in 1979, and in 1982 they teamed up again for Thriller, which went on to become the biggest-selling album of all time. Jones was also on hand for Thriller's follow-up, 1987's Bad, and the celebrated USA for Africa session which produced the benefit single "We Are the World" (written by Jackson and Lionel Richie), and he produced a rare album in which Jackson narrated the story of the film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.
Having risen to the heights of the recording industry, in 1985 Jones moved from scoring films to producing them; his first screen project was the screen adaptation of Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple, which was directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Whoopi Goldberg. In 1991 he moved into television production with the situation comedy The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which gave Will Smith his first starring role. Jones'
production company also launched several other successful shows,
including In the House and Mad TV. He also produced a massive concert to
help commemorate the 1993 inauguration of president Bill Clinton, and at the 1995 Academy Awards won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, a prize that doubtless found its place beside Quincy's 26 Grammy awards. In 1996 Jones
performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival to celebrate his 50th
anniversary in the music business. The concert was captured on video and
released as a DVD by Eagle Rock. Jones
spent the rest of the '90s and first decade of the new century
concentrating on his music publishing business and being an "unofficial"
cultural ambassador for the United States.
In 2004 he helped to launch the We Are the Future (WAF) project, benefiting children in conflict-inhibited situations all over the globe. The program is the result of a strategic partnership between the Glocal Forum, the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, and Hani Masri, with the support of the World Bank, UN agencies, and corporations. Jones personally lobbied President Barack Obama to create a secretary of the arts position in his cabinet. He also spent considerable time in Brazil, and in 2009 announced his plans for a film about Carnival and some of the nation's musicians and producers. In 2010 Jones released Q: Soul Bossa Nostra through his Qwest imprint, his first album in 15 years. The set featured appearances by popular vocalists Amy Winehouse, Usher, Tyrese, Tevin Campbell, and LL Cool J, among others. Ludacris and Naturally 7 reprised Jones' 1962 hit "Soul Bossa Nova"; the album's lead single/video was a cover of "Strawberry Letter 23" with lead vocals from Akon. In 2013, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a recipient of the Ahmet Ertegun Award.
https://rockhall.com/inductees/quincy-jones/bio/
Quincy Jones
(producer, conductor, arranger, composer;
born March 14, 1933)
Quincy Jones has had one of the longest, most successful careers in popular music. He is a record producer, conductor, arranger, film composer, television producer and trumpeter. He has worked with such artists as Michael Jackson, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, to name just a few. He has been nominated for a record 79 Grammys – and won 27 – and in 1991, he received the Grammy Legend Award.
Quincy Jones was born in Chicago on March 14, 1933. When he was 10, his family moved to Bremerton, Washington. He began playing trumpet, and, in Seattle, he met Ray Charles, who was three years older than him. In 1951, he won a scholarship to what is now the Berklee College of Music. He moved to Boston to attend the school, but he soon wound up taking an offer from Lionel Hampton to tour with his band as a trumpet player. While on the road with Hampton, Jones began showing talent as a song arranger. He left Hampton’s band in 1953 and moved to New York, where he arranged songs for several artists, including Count Basie, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Tommy Dorsey and Ray Charles, with whom he had become a close friend.
During the mid-Fifties, Jones served as musical director for Dizzy Gillespie. In 1956, he signed a deal with ABC-Paramount Records and began recording with his own band. Later in the Fifties and into the Sixties, he wrote charts and directed the orchestra for concerts and recording sessions by several singers, including Frank Sinatra, Billy Eckstine, Brook Benton, Johnny Mathis and his friend Ray Charles, helping him become a major force in American popular music. He was hired as musical director of Mercury Records’ New York division, and he was soon promoted to vice president, the first African-American to hold such an executive position with a white-owned record company.
Around that same time, Jones began writing film scores. At the invitation of director Sidney Lumet, he composed the music for The Pawnbroker (1965). It was the first of Jones' nearly 40 major–motion picture scores that would also include such classics as In Cold Blood (1967) and In the Heat of the Night (1967). He also wrote scores and composed music for hundreds of television shows, including the long-running Ironside series and Sanford and Son.
Jones continued arranging and producing records throughout the Sixties and Seventies. He produced four million-selling singles for Lesley Gore: “It’s My Party,” “Judy’s Turn to Cry,” “She’s a Fool” and “You Don’t Own Me.” He also continued working as a record executive. After leaving Mercury, he spent about a dozen years at A&M and then formed his own label, Qwest Records.
Despite suffering two brain aneurysms in 1974, Jones did not slow down. During the Seventies and Eighties, he produced albums for Aretha Franklin, George Benson, Michael Jackson, the Brothers Johnson and others. For Benson, he produced Give Me the Night, and he produced Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad for Jackson. As of 2013, Thriller has sold more than 110 million copies and is the best-selling album of all time.
In 1985, Jones used his influence and connections to convince many major artists to record the song "We Are the World" to raise money for the victims of Ethiopia's famine. To ensure that all of these big artists would be able to work together, Jones taped sign on the entrance to the studio that said: "Check Your Ego at the Door.”
A major film documentary, Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones, was released in 1991. A decade later, in 2001, Jones' autobiography, Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones, was published. Jones continues to work and make frequent appearances on TV shows and in documentaries about popular music.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/quincy-jones-the-story-of-an-american-musician/636/
Quincy Jones: In the Pocket
The Story of an American Musician
“Negro music is always RADICAL in the context of formal American culture.”
--LeRoi Jones, Blues People (1963)
PART II:
TO SEATTLE, TO NEW YORK,
TO EUROPE, TO HOLLYWOOD
Quincy Jones was born on the South Side of Chicago on March 14, 1933.
The South Side was the tough black ghetto of one of America’s biggest
cities, the city of Carl Sandburg and Richard Wright. By 1933 America
was steeped in the Great Depression, and Quincy and his younger brother,
Lloyd, learned to survive during those lean times the way many kids
did: by stealing, carrying weapons, playing hooky, and running around
with street gangs.
Like millions of other blacks since around 1915, his parents had come
up from the South to make a better life for themselves in the North,
where Jim Crow restrictions against African Americans were not quite so
rigid and where burgeoning industrialization meant more employment
opportunities, especially since the nation had limited European
immigration. But like the South, the North had its share of racial
violence, particularly right after World War I, a period referred to by
historians as “the Red Summer” of 1919. In fact, Chicago experienced one
of the worst race riots of the century that summer. These riots were
typified by marauding gangs of whites-aided by the police-killing or
maiming any blacks they saw and burning down black neighborhoods.
Certainly, coming North was no journey to Dreamland for African
Americans, but it was the start of a change that was to gather momentum
and create profound political and social change in American life in the
years ahead.
Migrating North made it possible for African Americans to create
vigorous political and artistic movements and to affect the growing
popular culture of entertainment much more directly than they would have
had they remained almost exclusively in the South. By the time Quincy
Jones was born, the NAACP-the oldest and in many respects the most
radical interracial organization dedicated to civil rights in this
country-had been in operation for over 20 years, and the editor of its
magazine, The Crisis, was one of the foremost intellectuals of his time,
W. E. B. Du Bois. Writers such as Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Jessie
Fauset, Countee Cullen, Nella Larsen, and intellectuals like Charles S.
Johnson, Alain Locke, and James Weldon Johnson had spawned a literary
movement that became known as the Harlem Renaissance. Marcus Garvey had
galvanized blacks with his Universal Negro Improvement Association and
his cry of “Africa for the Africans.” Du Bois, meanwhile, had organized
Pan-African conferences in Europe in 1919, 1921, 1923, and 1927, in an
effort to combat European colonialism. Jazz had become so popular in the
1920s that F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the period’s key writers and
famous personalities, dubbed the decade the Jazz Age.
But African Americans also made their presence felt on the Broadway
stage and in a music, mostly dominated by women singers, called the
blues. The ’20s saw the emergence of Armstrong, Ellington, Fletcher
Henderson, and Sidney Bechet, as well as Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith,
Josephine Baker, and Florence Mills. There was Eubie Blake and Noble
Sissle, Clarence Williams and W.C. Handy, Ida Cox, and a popular lesbian
performer named Gladys Bentley. There were parties at the mansion of
A’Lelia Walker, the daughter of Madame C. J. Walker, who made her
fortune selling black women’s hair care products. And there were mass
protests against lynching.
Paul Robeson was the major star of the period, having appeared in
Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones and All God’s Chillun Got Wings.
Butterbeans and Susie were the rage, and a young comedienne named Jackie
Mabley was knocking ’em dead.
In addition, the year Jones was born, staunch socialist A. Philip
Randolph, former publisher of The Messenger and considered by the U.S.
Justice Department to be the most dangerous Negro in post-World War I
America, was fighting to keep his union-the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters and Maids-together and to gain recognition from the Pullman
Company.
Quincy Jones was born during the Depression but right at the end of
the New Negro Movement. He might never have heard of it-or of the people
who made it possible-but those individuals’ lives made a profound
difference in the options and possibilities he would experience in his
own life.
Matters did not work out well for Quincy’s parents in Chicago. His
mother, a musically talented Christian Scientist, began to suffer from
severe headaches and spells of irrational behavior that eventually
landed her in a mental institution. Jones learned as an adult that his
mother’s condition was probably the result of a vitamin B deficiency.
(In his autobiography he describes a harrowing scene of being taken by
his father with his brother to see his institutionalized mother.)
A neighbor described Mrs. Jones this way:
“She was a beautiful woman, Mrs. Jones, I mean physically beautiful,
and smart. She went to Boston University. She taught me to type. She
could type 100 words a minute. She spoke and wrote several languages,
she knew stenography, religion, white history, colored folks history,
all kinds of things. She was one of the smartest people I ever met in my
life, till she got sick.” (Jones himself confirms this about his
mother, saying that she could even speak Yiddish.)
His father, who was a master carpenter, found it difficult to care
for his sons as a single parent, so for a time Quincy and Lloyd lived in
Louisville with their grandmother, who cooked rats and twisted the
heads off chickens with her bare hands. “She was an ex-slave,” Jones
recalled years later, “but she had moved up in the world since then. The
lock on the back door of her little house was a bent nail, and she had a
coal stove and kerosene lamps for light . . .” Eventually, the boys
went back to Chicago with their father, who joined households with a
woman who had several children of her own. In 1943, with job
opportunities expanding for black craftsmen as a result of the war, the
combined families moved to Bremerton, Washington, where Quincy Delight
Jones, Sr., went to work in the naval shipyards.
Quincy was introduced to music in Chicago by his mother, who was always singing religious songs, and by a next-door neighbor:
“When I was five or six, back in Chicago, there was this lady named
Lucy Jackson who used to play stride piano in the apartment next door,
and I listened to her all the time right through the walls.” As Lucy
Jackson herself recalled:
“Our houses were connected, and he heard me playing stride piano
through the walls one day, and I couldn’t keep him off my piano after
that, though I tried. He made too much trouble for me. My mother would
say, ‘That boy is seven years old, and you’re 12, and he marches in here
and plays so easily! What am I wasting my time for?’ Even then Quincy
had a gift. Music was in his soul. It came natural to him.”
But when Jones moved to Washington, his musical education began in
earnest. His father worked long hours, and his stepmother did not treat
him warmly, preferring her own children from a previous marriage and
ones she had with Quincy’s father. Food was not plentiful, and spending
money hard to come by. So, in Bremerton, Jones hustled newspapers and
shined shoes. For food he hung around a recreation center, where his
musical interests intensified:
“The rec center . . . was named ‘The Armory,’ after the base next
door, and one night we [Jones and his brother] broke into the soda
fountain area and found the freezer where they stored lemon meringue pie
and ice cream. We were stuffing ourselves with pie when I wandered into
a room next door. There was a stage in the room, and onstage was an old
upright piano. I went up there and tinkled on for a moment. That’s
where I began to find peace. I was 11.”
He joined the school choir and the school band, learning “how to play
drums, tuba, B-flat baritone horn, French horn, E-flat alto horn,
Sousaphone, and piano.” Despite living in Sinclair Heights, the black
section of town, he attended integrated schools, where he got along so
well that he was elected president of Robert E. Coontz’s Jr. High School
Boys Club and eventually married his high school sweetheart, the first
of three interracial marriages for Jones. These early experiences
enabled him to socialize with whites on whatever levels they permitted.
Moving with ease in the white world would prove a great asset to his
career.
But Jones didn’t get really serious about music until his family
moved to Seattle when he was a teenager. There he played in a small band
led by Ray Charles, who would remain a close friend throughout his life
and who would invite him to be his arranger and producer after Jones
established a name for himself in the music business. Jones also sang in
a gospel group and played R&B for Bumps Blackwell.
It was on the trumpet that his father gave him that Jones centered
his concentration: “. . . my main instrument [at first] was the trombone
because the trombone player got to be near the girls in the marching
band. . . . But inside my real love was trumpet and eventually I ended
up staying with it,” Jones recalled in a 1989 Billboard interview.
But he was never interested in being just a player. From his earliest
days, he tried to write and arrange music, pestering professional
musicians for guidance when they were in town on tour. One who took the
13-year-old Jones under his wing was trumpeter Clark Terry: “He taught
me and talked to me and gave me the confidence to get out there and see
what I could do on my own.”
Jones met Count Basie around that time as well, forming a
relationship that would endure until Basie’s death in 1984: “He was my
uncle, my father, my mentor, my friend-the dearest man in the world.”
Lionel Hampton was willing to take the young trumpeter and budding
arranger on the road with his band before Jones had finished high
school, but Gladys, Hampton’s wife and business manager, intervened.
With diploma earned, Jones joined Hampton’s band and entered the world
and discipline of the jazzmen, who, as Ralph Ellison put it, “lived for
and with music intensely. Their driving motivation was neither money nor
fame, but the will to achieve the most eloquent expression of
idea-emotions through the technical mastery of their instruments . . .
and the give and take, the subtle rhythmical shaping and blending of
idea, tone and imagination demanded of group improvisation.” Quincy
never looked back.
What is clear about Jones’ youth is that he encountered a number of
nurturing black male musicians who helped him enormously. There weren’t
any conservatories that taught black dance music, and since no one in
Jones’ family understood the life of a professional musician (his father
supported his efforts but was always skeptical about the profession
itself, as were many working-class people at the time, black and white),
he had no choice but to ingratiate himself with these older men.
Additionally, Jones understood quickly that it wasn’t just his
talents and the fire of his ambition that would make him a success but
also his personality. He discovered early in life how to charm people,
how to operate as a youngster in an adult world, just as he had learned
as a black how to move in a group of whites at school. This knowledge
certainly contributed to his ability to motivate and cultivate talented
yet insecure people. It also helped him convince those who questioned
him because of his youth or race when he made his ascent as a
bandleader, producer, and film scorer.
Jones realized his musical ambitions and formed the rudiments of his
musical tastes in the 1940s, when big band music was still around but
dying out; small group jazz, known as bebop, was emerging; the entire
identity of jazz itself was shifting toward art music; and rhythm &
blues was becoming a major artistic expression among urban blacks,
replacing jazz as black dance music. When he went on the road with
Hampton, he was young enough to be intrigued by these new musical
expressions while still being able to enjoy older big band swing.
Since his youth, Jones never seemed interested in repudiating
anything, so he was never a revolutionary in the sense of wanting to
overturn something. But he was open to revolutionary ideas and new ways
of conceiving music. He always expressed unease about musical
categorization. He told Down Beat in 1955:
“Actually, as arrangers we have a pretty hard time trying to do as good a job of categorizing music as do the fellows who make up the popularity charts. Truth is that you can take a rhumba beat, an opera singer, and a rhythm and blues guitar player and produce a record people will like if you do it sincerely and well.”
In a 1954 Down Beat article, Jones adumbrated his own path:
“A jazz musician now can either be an artist and do progressive things or he can work on pleasing the people. I know it’s a cliché, but I still think a happy medium between the two can be reached, and everybody has his own interpretation of what it can be.”
Speaking to Billboard in 1989, Jones credited his sense of musical openness to his early days as a performer:
“What’s so funny is that when people write about the music, jazz is in this box, R&B is in this box, pop is in this box. But we did everything. In Seattle you had to play everything. In fact, there was a song we played at [Jones’ 50th] birthday here just recently [with Ray Charles], ‘Big Fat Butterfly, which was a big part of the scene. In Seattle clubs, they had a kitty. . . . If you wanted to hear ‘Big Fat Butterfly,’ the customer would put $5 in the kitty. . . So everybody had to know those songs.”
It is clear that Jones remained remarkably consistent in his views
about balancing art and commerce and about the need for the jazz
musician to reach people. Jones, because of his involvement with various
types of black music-both dance and art-saw a continuity between them
all that perhaps some of his peers did not. Apparent, too, is his belief
as a newcomer that desiring popularity was not a bad thing for a
musician, as long as what the artist was doing was sincere, a word that
Jones has used several times in interviews over the years to denote an
essential aspect of any good music.
For instance, he has spoken several times about how embarrassed he
was by the costume he had to wear while playing in Hampton’s band
because he feared his bebop acquaintances would laugh at him for not
being hip. But he never seemed to mind playing Hampton’s music, some of
which he said was basically rock ‘n’ roll, nor did he mind Hampton’s
showmanship, which he believed essential for generating audience
enthusiasm. Hampton’s band was, as Jones called it, “a 360-degree band,”
which played all types of music and was quite capable of moving
instantly from rock ‘n’ roll to something distinctly boppish. And he is
very grateful to have been a part of a band with such a diversity of
spirit.
After graduating from high school, Jones received a scholarship from
Seattle University, but knowing that staying in Seattle wouldn’t help
him accomplish his musical goals, he applied for and accepted a
scholarship to Schillinger House of Music in Boston, later known as
Berklee College of Music. He did not stay there long, however-he yearned
for New York, the center of bebop.
While in Boston, Jones met bassist Oscar Pettiford, who hired him to
write arrangements. In 1950 he went with Pettiford to New York. “See, I
was spending a lot of time at the Hi Hat across the street [from where
he stayed]. That’s where I met Horace Silver, G.G. [sic] Gryce, and
Oscar Pettiford, who were so kind to me,” he told Nelson George in
Billboard. “Pettiford heard a couple of my things and he said, ‘I want
you to write two things for me and come to New York,’ Lord have mercy!”
And there, through Pettiford, he met Charlie Parker, the most
talked-about jazz musician of his generation; Miles Davis; Dizzy
Gillespie; and the other young lions of bebop. He returned to Boston for
a spell, but when Lionel Hampton called, he jumped immediately at the
opportunity to work with him again.
In New York and up close, Jones saw another aspect of the bebop
world: heroin addiction. That he was never seduced by drugs is another
striking aspect of his temperament. He experimented, “tried a little of
everything,” as he said, but never developed any sort of habit. Despite
his youth, Jones remained levelheaded. His composure earned him such
respect from Lionel Hampton that when Jones suggested the bandleader
hire Gigi Gryce, Benny Golson, and Clifford Brown from Tadd Dameron’s
band, Hampton did.
Jones especially admired trumpeter Brown, not only for his
musicianship but also for his character: “In this generation where some
well-respected and important pioneers condemn the young for going ahead,
Brownie has a very hard job,” wrote Jones in a tribute shortly after
Brown’s fatal automobile accident on June 26, 1956. “He constantly
struggled to associate jazz . . . with a cleaner element, and held no
room in his heart for bitterness about the publicity-made popularity and
success of some of his pseudo-jazz giant brothers, who were sometimes
very misleading morally and musically. As a man and a musician, he stood
for a perfect example and the rewards of self-discipline.”
Since he was mostly trying to make it as an arranger and composer,
Jones’ livelihood, as it unfolded, depended on this reliability. It may
have been possible for a player to enjoy a long career and also be a
drug addict-as was the case with pianist Bill Evans, Miles Davis,
drummer Art Blakey, and saxophonists Charlie Parker and Stan Getz-but
addiction in the late 1940s and early 1950s damaged lives and careers
with incredible voraciousness. It was impossible for an arranger and
composer to indulge in drugs and be successful in the long run. The
nature of the work required a certain precision and sobriety and
efficiency in often hurried, stressful circumstances. No drug addict
could be counted on to have these qualities. And if one developed a
reputation for sloppiness or lateness, there was virtually no hope of
ever thriving. The drug-free Jones, however, developed such a sense of
responsibility and maturity that when Dizzy Gillespie did his 1956 U.S.
State Department tour of the Middle East and South America, he hired the
23-year-old as his musical director and arranger. “He took care of
organizing the band, the arrangements. All I had to do was play,” said
Gillespie.
After leaving Hampton’s band, he became a freelance arranger, working
with singer Helen Merrill, Sonny Stitt, Billy Taylor, Ray Charles, Milt
Jackson, Clifford Brown, Art Farmer, James Moody, King Pleasure, and
Dinah Washington. He also worked with such rhythm & blues performers
as Brook Benton, Chuck Willis, and Big Maybelle.
But if New York opened certain doors for him to establish himself as
an arranger, composer, and producer, and exposed him to the best young
jazz innovators, Europe offered even more opportunity. In addition to
freeing him from the racial tensions of the United States, the Continent
offered him a place where jazz was more appreciated, even if it was not
necessarily more lucrative.
The 1950s were Jones’ European years. He first visited Europe in 1953
with Hampton’s band. Soon after, he recorded some arrangements with Art
Farmer, Clifford Brown, and The Swedish All Stars in Sweden, which
established his reputation in many quarters overseas. From 1957 to 1958
he returned as musical director for Barclay Records, owned by Eddie
Barclay and Nadia Boulanger, the famous composition instructor whose
students included Darius Milhaud and Aaron Copland. Jones became one of
the few jazz musicians to study under Boulanger, largely to learn
counterpoint, orchestration, and composition, knowledge that would
become essential to him as a film scorer.
One of the main reasons Jones accepted the job with Barclay was to
learn how to work with strings. “In New York, they wouldn’t let blacks
write for or arrange the strings. The record companies figured you could
write for horns or rhythm sections but strings were from another
domain,” he said. Actually, there were a few blacks writing for
strings-Sy Oliver and William Grant Still, for example-but they were
scarce. In general, black composers were largely limited to the musical
palette they could work with. (The success that Barry White achieved
with his Love Unlimited Orchestra and hits like “Love’s Theme” in the
early 1970s demonstrated how far black popular composers had come since
the 1950s.)
Being in Paris also opened Jones to new artistic and intellectual
life: “. . . I got to meet incredible people such as James Baldwin,
Richard Wright, Françoise Sagan, Josephine Baker, Pablo Picasso, even
Porfirio Rubirosa. That year was wonderful,” he told Playboy in 1990. In
addition, Jones’ time with Boulanger gave him a measure of legitimacy
that his jazz experience could not. It also made him a sophisticated
man.
He returned to Europe in 1959, this time as the musical director of a
show by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer called Free And Easy. Instead of
taking the usual route of holding tryouts in various U.S. cities, the
producers decided to test the production in Europe for six months. Given
a guarantee of two years’ work, Jones was able to attract such luminous
players as alto saxophonist Phil Woods, trumpeter Clark Terry,
trombonists Melba Liston and Quentin Jackson, French horn player Julius
Watkins, and reedman Jerome Richardson. The two-year period planned for
runs in Europe, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, with an opening on
Broadway. It was a dream gig, and many thought it signaled the return of
the big band as a viable commercial venture. Down Beat covered the
formation of the show’s band with great fanfare in the spring and fall
of 1959. “It’s a fabulous thing,” Jones said at the time. “We expect
it’s going to run a long time on Broadway.” The show left for Europe at
the end of 1959.
But the play never made it to Broadway. It never made it back to the
United States. Indeed, it never even finished its European run. It
closed in Paris in March 1960. Instead of dissolving the band, Jones
tried to meet the $4,000 to $5,000 per week payroll to keep the
musicians working, believing that a group that solid would survive in
Europe. In a timely gesture, Norman Granz hired the band for a
three-week tour with Nat “King” Cole. There were other gigs, but they
were not enough. By the end of 1960 Jones was over $100,000 in debt, a
staggering sum of money at the time. Several years later he said, “It
was the closest I ever came to suicide.”
In the summer of 1961 Jones finally gave up, and the band folded.
Keeping the group together was defeating his purpose for having it in
the first place. “You’re out there for nothing, losing all your money;
and your idea was to get a band to play your own music in a seasoned,
developed way. You end up being a manager, a road manager, everything
else but an arranger,” he told Down Beat in 1962. Even in Europe, where
the music was supposedly loved and treated with great respect, jazz-at
least big band jazz-could not pay its own way.
It took Jones seven years to free himself from debt. He hocked his
publishing companies and his songs in an attempt to keep the band
afloat. Perhaps he had the last laugh: In the early 1970s, among college
undergraduates, especially black undergraduates, some of the most
popular records were Walking In Space (1969), Gula Matari, (1970),
Smackwater Jack (1971), and Body Heat (1974). Jones had succeeded with a
new generation of young people to create music written and arranged for
a big band pop sound again-and he even managed to make some of it
funky.
After Jones returned from Europe in 1961, Irving Green at Mercury
Records hired him as an A&R man (short for artists and repertoire
and very much like a producer today). Green promoted him to Vice
President the following year, making Jones the first black person with
such a position at a white-owned label. In his new role, he worked
doggedly as a producer, arranger, and a touring musical director for
several artists. He also discovered Lesley Gore during this time and
began producing her teen hits. In addition, between 1961 and 1965 Jones
made records for Dizzy Gillespie, Dinah Washington, Brook Benton, Peggy
Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sammy
Davis, Jr., and Billy Eckstine.
If Jones wasn’t busy enough during the Mercury years, he was also
establishing himself as a composer of film music, a prospect that
eventually lured him from the record company. In 1963 director Sidney
Lumet, husband of Lena Horne’s daughter, asked Jones to write the music
for his movie The Pawnbroker. Lumet specifically wanted a somber but
searing jazzlike score, and Jones met his needs perfectly.
After the job, Jones relocated to Hollywood in 1965 to make it as
film scorer. That same year he worked on Mirage, a film starring Gregory
Peck, and Walk, Don’t Run, Cary Grant’s last film. When one Hollywood
executive learned that Jones was black, he resisted keeping Jones on his
project, but Henry Mancini came to Jones’ defense. Still, the
entrenched industry racism and skepticism about his ability to provide
anything other than a jazz-derived arrangement meant Jones had to work
his way slowly into the film-scoring game. Benny Carter, an established
jazzman and another black then working in Hollywood, got him work doing
the music for television shows in the interim.
And then Jones scored his first Sidney Poitier film, The Slender
Thread, which was also director Sydney Pollack’s first movie. Poitier’s
stardom afforded Jones considerable opportunities: he scored several
other pictures starring the talented African American actor, including
1967’s highly successful In The Heat Of The Night. In 1967 Jones was
also hired by Richard Brooks for his film In Cold Blood, over author
Truman Capote’s objection. (Capote wanted Leonard Bernstein.) Through
the late ’60s and into the early ’70s the film and TV scoring offers
kept coming, with Jones writing and producing the themes for Sanford
& Son, Ironside, and the first Bill Cosby Show (debuting in 1969),
among others. By 1970 he was established in the film industry as an
important composer and as a major presence in popular music, with a slew
of Grammy® and even a couple of Oscar® nominations.
In 1972 he stepped away from the recording studio for a moment to
help organize Chicago’s Black EXPO (an offshoot of Operation PUSH) with
Jesse Jackson, who had become a good friend. Certainly because of the
character of the time, Jones became firmly committed to the historical
preservation of black music, helping to organize seminars on the subject
as early as the 1970 Black EXPO. During this period, he was also
involved in forming the Institute of Black American Music and spoke of
starting a project that would chronicle the history of black music from
Africa to the Americas, ancient to modern times. To deepen his
knowledge, he was seriously and assiduously researching black music.
Jones recalled a conversation he once had with Cannonball Adderley,
Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock about “expanding ourselves,” making jazz
more accessible and stretching the format of bebop. With Hancock’s
“Watermelon Man” and later work Head Hunters, Adderley’s hit singles
“Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” and “The Country Preacher” and albums like Soul Of
The Bible (featuring his brother, Nat), and Davis’ extraordinary
Bitches Brew, all these musicians expanded themselves and modern
American music and did so within a span of roughly ten years, from 1963
(“Watermelon Man”) to 1972 (Soul Of The Bible).
Jones was arguably the most remarkable of the group. He was making a
profit and had reestablished himself as a bandleader with a series of
very popular albums in the early and mid-1970s. By 1974 he was
unquestionably the most successful crossover artist, as well as the most
ubiquitous, most commercially viable, and one of the hardest-working
jazz musicians of his generation. He had learned the lesson of his own
dictum: “Let music, each genre, stay true to its soul.”
One evening in August 1974, while in bed with his wife, actress Peggy
Lipton, Jones was suddenly stricken: “. . . I felt this blinding pain,
like somebody had blown a shotgun through my brain. It was just the
worst pain I’d ever felt in my whole life, and I was screaming, and I
didn’t know what was happening to me. Peggy called the paramedics, but
by the time they got there, I had blacked out and gone into a coma. . . .
I’d had an aneurysm. The main artery to my brain had popped and blood
was pouring into my brain, which had swollen up so big they had to wait
eight days before they could operate on me,” he told Playboy in 1990.
With a 1 in 100 chance of making it through, Jones managed to survive,
not one, but two major neurological surgeries on both sides of his
skull. He began to change his view on life as a result of this
near-death experience. As he said in 1976, “I haven’t turned mean or
anything like that, but I don’t ever again intend to hold all my
feelings inside and refuse to get things out in the open. There’s going
to be no more pretending about anything.” He became a devotee of Hatha
Yoga, although adopting this new regimen had nothing to do with
religion. “Since I was 15 years old I’ve had the chance to explore
various religions, and I’ve tried to distill the best of all and make it
work in my life,” he stated.
Although Jones talked about slowing down, once he recovered from his
surgery, he was soon working as relentlessly as he ever had. In 1977 he
used his knowledge of African music to score the first episode of Roots,
the television miniseries based on Alex Haley’s best-selling book of
the same name and the most-watched television program of its time. Since
he was discouraged from using more authentic African music, he decided
to only contribute the music for the first installment.
He reteamed with Sidney Lumet in 1978, this time scoring the film The
Wiz. “I hated doing ‘The Wiz,’ he remembered. “I did not want to do it.
Sidney knew that, too. I didn’t like the music, you know. And I didn’t
like the script.” Jones did like a few songs from the show, however,
including “Home” and “Ease On Down The Road.” And as a result of working
on the movie, Jones got to know the young pop star who played the
Scarecrow and whom he had met years before: Michael Jackson.
Jones made his greatest impact on American popular culture in the
1980s--it was truly his breakthrough decade. He produced Michael
Jackson’s Off The Wall for Epic Records in 1979. Considered one of the
best dance records and one of the most cutting-edge pop albums of the
time, it spawned four Top 10 hits and sold nearly 10 million copies.
Jackson’s next collaboration with Jones, 1982’s Thriller, was more than
an album; it was a major cultural moment. Thriller sold about 50 million
copies, more than any other album in the history of recorded music. It
generated a hysteria unseen in this country since the days of The
Beatles in the 1960s and Elvis Presley the decade before. No record by
anybody, black or white, in 20th century America, had caused the same
stir as Thriller. About the making of the landmark album, Jones told
Playboy: “All the brilliance that had been building inside Michael
Jackson for twenty-five years just erupted. It’s like he was suddenly
transformed from this gifted young man into a dangerous predatory
animal. I’d known Michael since he was twelve years old, but it was like
seeing and hearing him for the first time. I was electrified, and so
was everybody else involved in the project.”
For his Qwest label, Jones produced Frank Sinatra’s L.A. Is My Lady
in 1984, one of Chairman of the Board’s more significant records during
his later years. Then in 1985 Jones helmed the “We Are The World”
single, which won a Grammy for Record of the Year. Even more significant
than these accomplishments, however, was his entrance into film
production with the screen adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer
Prize-winning feminist novel, The Color Purple. “When Peter Guber
brought me Alice Walker’s book to read, it was such a powerful
experience for me that I could see it unfolding like a movie right
inside my mind . . .” he recalls. “So I asked Steven Spielberg to direct
it, because he’s one of the finest filmmakers we’ve ever seen, and The
Color Purple deserved the best there is.”
It was probably more than a little unusual for Jones, and surely a
sign of the catholicity of his taste and temperament, to be so taken
with a work that had caused consternation among black men who felt
unfairly attacked by the novel. It was a much-discussed book in the
black community upon publication, since the issue of black feminism was a
topical one. In fact, the works of such writers as Nikki Giovanni, Gayl
Jones, Toni Morrison, Toni Cade Bambara, Maya Angelou, Gloria Naylor,
and June Jordan were gaining prominence, and a revival of older black
women writers like Gwendolyn Brooks, Dorothy West, and Ann Petry was
taking place. Certainly the film adaptation of The Color Purple gave
these women writers more visibility than anything else could have in the
history of American literary popular culture. (The only other film up
to that time based on a black woman’s work was 1970’s The Landlord, from
the Kristin Hunter novel.)
The Color Purple catapulted the careers of both its leads, Danny
Glover and Whoopi Goldberg. It also made a major star of a Chicago
television talk-show hostess whom Jones wanted for the film the moment
he spotted her: Oprah Winfrey. Like Berry Gordy-the Motown Records
founder who had earlier turned to film and set the spotlight on a black
woman when he made Diana Ross the star of Lady Sings The Blues, the only
picture he directed-Jones must have felt that he could produce a movie,
in part, because it involved skills similar to music production. As
Diane K. Shah wrote in her profile on Quincy Jones for The New York
Times Magazine: “[The record producer]’s role is like that of a film
director-conceiving themes and putting together performers and songs in
order to weave a musical plot.” And as Jones says about himself: “I’ve
always been visually oriented.”
But this enormous output of work, and the great success it generated,
was not without costs. Jones’ marriage to Peggy Lipton ended in divorce
in 1990. In 1986 he suffered an emotional breakdown, which the press
called an “adrenal syndrome.” Eventually, he fled to an island in Tahiti
owned by Marlon Brando to pull himself together. “Since I got back from
Tahiti, I’ve learned that the only way to keep my flame bright is
abandoning myself completely to every moment I’m alive,” Jones
confessed. “I don’t know whether I’ll be here for another thirty years
or another thirty minutes, so I want to just inhale my life-smell the
roses and the butter and the seashore and everything else on the planet
that I dearly love.”
The 1990s saw Jones become a popular music/popular culture mogul. He
has always been acutely aware of the business side of music since his
European tour fiasco-Irving Green taught him well during his A&R
days for Mercury back in the early 1960s. Since the middle of the
decade, he has been the owner of five separate enterprises: Qwest
Records, a label concentrated on recording a variety of gospel, jazz,
rap, and pop albums; Quincy Jones Music Publishing, a music company with
a stable of talented songwriters, producers, and artists, representing
music from Brazilian to pop to hip-hop. Quincy Jones Entertainment, Inc.
(QJE), a joint enterprise with Time Warner, which has produced such
television shows as The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, an enormous hit that
made Will Smith a megastar; Vibe magazine, the hip-hop answer to Rolling
Stone, jointly owned with Time Ventures and founded by Jones in 1992
because he thought Rolling Stone paid too little attention to black
music and black youth culture; and Qwest Broadcasting, with the Tribune
Company, which owns television stations in Atlanta and New Orleans.
In addition, Jones and Marty Payson financed Harvard professor’s
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s Africana multimedia program, one of the most
ambitious projects of black scholarship in American history (fulfilling
W. E. B. Du Bois’s long-cherished but unfulfilled dream of compiling a
massive reference work that collects and chronicles the entire black
experience from Africa to the present day).
Jones is also a partner and investor in a new TV cable network called
New Urban Entertainment (NUE) Television. He plans to produce more
movies, including a live-action/animated remake of The Great Race, with
Billy Gerber as coproducer, and The Godfather Of Rock ‘N’ Roll, a biopic
of a famous pop culture impresario, with Robert De Niro as coproducer.
No musician established in jazz-hardly any musician of any
persuasion-has ever obtained this magnitude of ownership of American
popular culture properties. This is not simply a testament to Jones’
endurance, tenacity, and will but also to his brilliance, his vision,
and his sense of always being current. Had he remained in jazz or kept
seeing the world through the music he had been making back in the 1940s
or 1950s, he would never have had the presence of mind or the
imagination to accomplish any of this. He’s had his disappointments, of
course: His idea for a Jesse Jackson television show never came to
fruition; The Color Purple did not win one of the 11 Oscars for which it
was nominated, even though it was critically and commercially
successful; his attempt to produce a late-night talk show fell short;
and, despite his enormous popularity, Jones could not, even today, front
a big jazz band, take it on the road, and have it break even by the end
of the tour. But he has never forgotten how much black music’s radical,
subversive power has inspired him, brought him out of the darkness of
poverty and deprivation, and has also changed the world. What drove
Jones, as much as anything, was his belief, his faith, in the expressive
possibility of black music and black culture and his belief in himself
to reach people. Jones has become a virtual epoch in American popular
cultural history, a person of such importance and achievement that it is
difficult to imagine the era without him.
“It wasn’t like standing still was bein’ neutral. Standing still was
going backwards. Standing still was impossible.” -Q uincy Jones
“Pretty music, when you hear it,Keep on trying to get near it. . .”
-– Terry Callier, “Ordinary Joe”
“I . . . thought Quincy was amazing . . . he really brought a lot of
ideas to the thing. He went through the scores and really refined the
stuff with a fine tooth comb. I think as much as the guys were playing
for Gil and Miles, they were playing for Quincy too.” – Pianist Gil
Goldstein, on the Miles Davis – Quincy Jones Sessions
CODA: TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
It is fitting that two months before he died in 1991, Miles Davis
performed some of his classic Gil Evans charts with Jones conducting at
the Montreux Jazz Festival. They were the two old warhorses of bebop,
the youngsters-only five years apart in age-who had gone east for
school, Davis to Juilliard and Jones to Schillinger’s-but who wound up
tracking down Charlie Parker and Birdland instead, the two survivors who
had each in his own way been so involved in the shaping of post-World
War II American music. That they should wind up playing together was
touching and, as much as anything, announced the end of an era in
American cultural life. Things had come full-circle for the two men who
had come so far and had run beyond the rest of the pack. Now, on this
night in 1991, they were playing a version of the big band music they’d
loved as young musicians. What Davis once said about Jones was equally
true for himself during a certain period in his creative life: “Certain
paperboys can go in any yard with any dogs and they won’t get bit. He
just has it.”
Jones and Davis were two of our best paperboys. They took us all the
way to the lighthouse, to a source of illumination in both the world and
in ourselves. It was almost as if, in this last concert for Davis,
these old friends were looking back at that distance, at those they had
left behind, and were saying, as Walt Whitman said at the end of his
magnificent poem “Song Of Myself,” an extraordinary celebration of ego
and the transcendent power of art and life:
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Gerald Early is a Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis.
To order a copy of Quincy Jones, please visit the American Masters Shop.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/an-evening-with-a-legend-quincy-jones-quincy-jones-by-solomon-leflore.php
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/an-evening-with-a-legend-quincy-jones-quincy-jones-by-solomon-leflore.php
Quincy Jones: An Evening With A Legend
by
AllAboutJazz
I love jazz!
I love everything about it... the improvisation, syncopation, the
forceful rhythm, and the fact that it is truly America's original art
form. Its unique and innovative use of brass and woodwind instruments
and the piano is jazz. And, it is as American as apple pie.
Ask 100 different people "What is jazz?" and you're likely to get 100 different answers. Its styles include Dixieland, swing, bebop, and free jazz. Jazz is America's classical music. It migrated from the early days of ragtime, and onward through swing, bop, and progressive jazz.
Jazz music has its roots in the the African-American slavery experience (the black ghettos of New Orleans at the end of the 19th century). Jazz from New Orleans in the 1920s up river to St. Louis, then to Chicago (Quincy's early teen home) and New York City as African Americans migrated north in search of a better life.
The 1930s saw the evolution of swing bands like those led by Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie. At the same time great soloists emerged, virtuosi like Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. In the 1940s bebop hit, personified in the music of artists included tenor sax players John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins; alto saxophonist Charlie Parker; trumpeters Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie; pianists Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk; and guitarists Wes Montgomery and Charlie Christian. Charlie Parker took all of the melodic and harmonic information available and crystallized it into bebop.
About one month ago today I had the privilege of taking a meeting with the legendary Quincy Jones ("Quincy," or "Q" as his friends refer to him). Few know the evolution of jazz like Quincy. He would object to the adjective "legendary" description because as he said, "it makes him sound old."
Trust me, Q is a living testament to the fact that chronological age is just a number. There is nothing old about Quincy Jones, especially his music. The man is the source of boundless intelligence, focus, and proactivity... and a great Daddy.
When Quincy Jones speaks, one would be wise to listen... which I was more than eager to do. He combines academic research with a wealth of personal knowledge of the music and shared many fascinating anecdotes about the great artists of jazz.
Quincy is uniquely qualified to answer questions about great artists like: Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Lesley Gore, Michael Jackson, Peggy Lee, Ray Charles, Paul Simon, and Aretha Franklin... all (except Parker) are among the endless list of artists who Quincy has produced. Of the beboppers who emerged after World War II only Miles Davis and Quincy Jones survived as major musical presences.
While waiting in Quincy's screening room and library for our meeting to start, I was impressed by the over 25 Grammys that I saw. That is more than any other music producer in history. He's been nominated for seven Academy Awards, and has worked tirelessly shaping and reshaping American popular culture for most of his 81 years.... And, as Quincy would say, "the best is yet to come."
Did I say HOT ROCKS! Quincy Jones delivered a sultry jazz score and LP to one of the best caper films ever made. This score, one of the first Jazz scores for a major motion picture, has been endlessly sampled for four decades, and it's not hard to see why -his band consisted of: Clark Terry, Gerry Mulligan, Grady Tate, and Ray Brown.
This LP was designed with a gatefold sleeve cut down to a 3.5-inch flap that folded down over the cast photo (to detail contribution music artist) when closed: Composed By, Conductor—Quincy Jones Performer [Musician]—Carol Kaye, Chuck Rainey, Clare Fischer, Clark Terry, Dennis Budimir, Emil Richards, Frank Rosolino, Gerry Mulligan, Grady Tate, Jerome Richardson, Mike Melvoin, Milt Holland, Ray Brown, Tommy Tedesco, Victor Feldman Producer, Arranged By—Bill Rinehart (tracks: A6), Don Altfeld (tracks: A6), Quincy Jones (tracks: A1 to A5, B1 to B6)
As I studied another of Quincy's walls of great achievements, I saw movie posters from In The Heat Of The Night; The Out Of Towners; Cactus Flower; In Cold Blood; and The Color Purple. They are bold evidence that he has worked with as many great actors, directors, and producers as he has musicians.
Ask 100 different people "What is jazz?" and you're likely to get 100 different answers. Its styles include Dixieland, swing, bebop, and free jazz. Jazz is America's classical music. It migrated from the early days of ragtime, and onward through swing, bop, and progressive jazz.
Jazz music has its roots in the the African-American slavery experience (the black ghettos of New Orleans at the end of the 19th century). Jazz from New Orleans in the 1920s up river to St. Louis, then to Chicago (Quincy's early teen home) and New York City as African Americans migrated north in search of a better life.
The 1930s saw the evolution of swing bands like those led by Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie. At the same time great soloists emerged, virtuosi like Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. In the 1940s bebop hit, personified in the music of artists included tenor sax players John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins; alto saxophonist Charlie Parker; trumpeters Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie; pianists Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk; and guitarists Wes Montgomery and Charlie Christian. Charlie Parker took all of the melodic and harmonic information available and crystallized it into bebop.
About one month ago today I had the privilege of taking a meeting with the legendary Quincy Jones ("Quincy," or "Q" as his friends refer to him). Few know the evolution of jazz like Quincy. He would object to the adjective "legendary" description because as he said, "it makes him sound old."
Trust me, Q is a living testament to the fact that chronological age is just a number. There is nothing old about Quincy Jones, especially his music. The man is the source of boundless intelligence, focus, and proactivity... and a great Daddy.
When Quincy Jones speaks, one would be wise to listen... which I was more than eager to do. He combines academic research with a wealth of personal knowledge of the music and shared many fascinating anecdotes about the great artists of jazz.
Quincy is uniquely qualified to answer questions about great artists like: Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Lesley Gore, Michael Jackson, Peggy Lee, Ray Charles, Paul Simon, and Aretha Franklin... all (except Parker) are among the endless list of artists who Quincy has produced. Of the beboppers who emerged after World War II only Miles Davis and Quincy Jones survived as major musical presences.
While waiting in Quincy's screening room and library for our meeting to start, I was impressed by the over 25 Grammys that I saw. That is more than any other music producer in history. He's been nominated for seven Academy Awards, and has worked tirelessly shaping and reshaping American popular culture for most of his 81 years.... And, as Quincy would say, "the best is yet to come."
Did I say HOT ROCKS! Quincy Jones delivered a sultry jazz score and LP to one of the best caper films ever made. This score, one of the first Jazz scores for a major motion picture, has been endlessly sampled for four decades, and it's not hard to see why -his band consisted of: Clark Terry, Gerry Mulligan, Grady Tate, and Ray Brown.
This LP was designed with a gatefold sleeve cut down to a 3.5-inch flap that folded down over the cast photo (to detail contribution music artist) when closed: Composed By, Conductor—Quincy Jones Performer [Musician]—Carol Kaye, Chuck Rainey, Clare Fischer, Clark Terry, Dennis Budimir, Emil Richards, Frank Rosolino, Gerry Mulligan, Grady Tate, Jerome Richardson, Mike Melvoin, Milt Holland, Ray Brown, Tommy Tedesco, Victor Feldman Producer, Arranged By—Bill Rinehart (tracks: A6), Don Altfeld (tracks: A6), Quincy Jones (tracks: A1 to A5, B1 to B6)
As I studied another of Quincy's walls of great achievements, I saw movie posters from In The Heat Of The Night; The Out Of Towners; Cactus Flower; In Cold Blood; and The Color Purple. They are bold evidence that he has worked with as many great actors, directors, and producers as he has musicians.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/jones_q_timeline_flash.html
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Quincy Jones
(b. March 14, 1933)
Biography
As a composer, arranger, conductor, instrumentalist,
record company executive, magazine founder, and record, film and
television producer, Quincy Jones has had a spectacular influence
on American culture for more than 50 years.
Artists from every era of American popular
music, from bebop to hip hop, have turned to Quincy Jones to help
them achieve their best: Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn, Nat King
Cole, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, Andy Williams,
Peggy Lee, Lesley Gore, Aretha Franklin, Ringo Starr, Michael
Jackson, Chaka Khan, Donna Sommers, George Benson, and Barbra
Streisand. "He's Doctor Fixit," said Dizzy Gillespie.
"People go to him because he knows what he's doin'. He knows
the sound you've got in you, and he's got the experience and the
know-how to get it out.
He has won 26 Grammy Awards and been nominated 76 times, an all-time record. He has composed 33 major motion picture scores, has been nominated for seven Academy Awards, and was awarded the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He has earned world-wide acclaim as conductor and producer of the historic "We Are the World" (the best-selling single of all time), and produced the best-selling album in the history of the recording industry: Michael Jackson's Thriller. As a creator of new music, he has shuffled pop, soul, hip-hop, jazz, classical, African and Brazilian music into a dazzling fusion all his own. In 1964, when he was named a vice-president of Mercury Records, he became the first African-American to hold a high-level executive position in a white-owned record company. And after composing the score for Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker in 1965, he was the first black composer embraced by the Hollywood establishment. This year, Ebony Magazine named Jones the most powerful black person in Hollywood.
By 13, Quincy Jones, grandson of a Mississippi slave, had tried all the instruments in his school band in suburban Seattle before settling on the trumpet. His best friend was a local singer and pianist three years his senior named Ray Charles. Together, they played all kinds of music for all kinds of people--a situation that would be emblematic of his entire career. "At school, we were playing John Philip Sousa and classical concert-band music," says Jones. "We'd play dinner music at the white tennis clubs, and later we'd play hard rhythm and blues at the black social clubs. Then we'd go to the red-light district and play for strippers and comics, and then play bebop into the early morning-it was the greatest life in the world."
Eventually, Jones accepted an offer to go on the road with bandleader Lionel Hampton, and this stint led to works as arranger, and throughout the 50s he wrote charts for Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington, Cannonball Adderley, and his old friend Ray Charles.
By 1956, Jones was performing as a trumpeter and music director with the Dizzy Gillespie band on State Department-sponsored tours of the Middle East and South America and in 1957 he settled in Paris where he studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen, and worked as a music director for Barclay Disques, where he recorded the young Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour.
In 1964, Jones returned to the United States to take the Mercury Records position and also composed his first film score--The Pawnbroker, which was so successful that he left Mercury and moved to Los Angeles. His film credits now include Walk Don't Run, The Slender Thread, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night, A Dancy in Aspic, MacKenna's Gold, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, Cactus Flower, and The Getaway. His career in film reached a high point when he co-produced Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple, which was nominated for 11 Oscars. For television, Jones wrote the theme music for "Ironside" (the first synthesizer-based TV theme song), "Sanford and Son," "The Bill Cosby Show" and won an Emmy Award for the mini-series "Roots."
Back in the recording studio, Jones recorded a series of chart-topping, Grammy-winning albums and in 1982 he and Michael Jackson made history with Thriller, which sold over 30 million copies and produced an unprecedented six Top Ten singles.
In the early '90s, became co-CEO and chairman of Quincy Jones/David Salzman Entertainment (QDE), a co-venture with Time-Warner, Inc, which encompasses multi-media programming for current and future technologies, including theatrical motion pictures and television programs. He also runs his own record label, Qwest Records and is chairman and CEO of Qwest Broadcasting, one of the largest minority-owned broadcasting companies in the United States.
Quincy Jones is also a lifelong activist. He was a major supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr.'s Operation Breadbasket, and after King's death, he served on the board of Jesse Jackson's People United to Save Humanity. An ongoing concern throughout his life has been to foster appreciation of African-American music and culture and to this end he helped form the Institute for Black American Music, which was instrumental in establishing a national library of African-American art and music. Jones is also the founder of the annual Black Arts Festival in his hometown of Chicago.
http://www.biography.com/people/quincy-jones-9357524
Quincy Jones Biography
Children's Activist, Music Producer, Television Producer, Songwriter, Trumpet Player (1933–)
Quincy Jones is best known as a composer and record producer for legendary musicians such as Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Celene Dion and Aretha Franklin.
Synopsis
Quincy Jones was convinced at an early age to explore music by his teenage friend Ray Charles. He played in various bands through the 50's, began composing for film and television in the mid 60's and eventually produced over 50 scores. He has worked with musicians Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and Celine Dion. He's also the most Grammy-nominated artist in history, with 79 nominations and 27 wins. Jones founded a charity for youth in 1985.
Early Career
Famed musician Quincy Jones was born Quincy Delight Jr. on March 14, 1933, in Chicago, Illinois. A multifaceted jazz and pop figure who became the most Grammy-nominated artist in history with 79 nominations and 27 wins, he began with his Seattle teenage friend Ray Charles, who interested him in arranging. He played trumpet and arranged for Lionel Hampton (1951-3), then worked as a freelance arranger on many jazz sessions. He served as musical director for Dizzy Gillespie's overseas big-band tour (1956), worked for Barclay Records in Paris (1957-8), and led an all-star big band for the European production of Harold Arlen's blues opera, "Free and Easy" (1959).
Returning to New York, Jones composed and arranged for Count Basie, Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan, while holding an executive post at Mercury Records and producing his own increasingly pop-oriented records. In the mid-1960s he began composing for films and television, eventually producing over 50 scores and serving as a trailblazing African-American musician in the Hollywood arena.
Jones produced Aretha Franklin's 1973 album Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky).
Qwest Productions
In 1975, Jones founded Qwest Productions, for which he arranged and produced hugely successful albums by Frank Sinatra and other major pop figures. In 1978, he produced the soundtrack for the musical adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, The Wiz, starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. In 1982, Jones's produced Michael Jackson's all-time best-selling album Thriller.
In June 2009, a statement on his website regarding the sudden death of Jackson, Jones stated "I am absolutely devastated at this tragic and unexpected news. For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don't have the words. Divinity brought our souls together on The Wiz and allowed us to do what we were able to throughout the 80's. To this day, the music we created together on Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad is played in every corner of the world and the reason for that is because he had it all... talent, grace, professionalism and dedication. He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I've lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him."
Philanthropy
In 1985, Quincy Jones used his clout among major American recording artists to record the much celebrated anthem "We Are the World" to raise money for victims of famine in Ethiopia. His work on behalf of social causes has spanned his career, including the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, which built more than 100 homes in South Africa in 2001. The charity aims to connect youths with technology, education, culture and music and sponsors an intercultural exchange between teens in Los Angeles and South Africa.
Ventures Beyond Music
Jones also produced the 1985 film The Color Purple directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Danny Glover; the television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air starring Will Smith (1990-96) and published the magazines Vibe and SPIN. In 1990, Quincy Jones formed Quincy Jones Entertainment (QJE), a co-venture with Time Warner, Inc.
Jones has been married three times; to Jeri Caldwell from 1957 to 1966 (they have one daughter), to Ulla Andersson from 1967 to 1974 (they have a son and a daughter), and to Peggy Lipton from 1974 to 1990 (they have two daughters). He also has two daughters from prior relationships. Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones was published in 2001.
http://www.jazz.com/encyclopedia/jones-quincy-delight
In the 1970s and 1980s, he produced two of the most commercially successful albums in music history, Michael Jackson's Off the Wall and Thriller. He was also helped create a media conglomerate which founded Vibe magazine and produced such hit television shows as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
Quincy Delight Jones was born on March 14th, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Quincy Senior, was a professional basketball player, while his mother Sarah Frances was a financial executive. Quincy Junior moved with his mother when he was ten years old to Seattle, Washington.
He soon took up various brass instruments before settling on the trumpet. As a teenager, Jones befriended a young musician by the name of Ray Charles, who gave the budding trumpeter lessons on harmony and other aspects of music theory. In high school, Jones studied trumpet with Clark Terry, and performed with the likes of Billie Holiday. He studied at the University of Seattle for a short time, before accepting a music scholarship to attend the newly formed Schillinger House in Boston, which later became the Berklee School, and then Berklee College, of Music.
Jones didn't stay in college for long. He left before his first year was over to take a position playing trumpet for vibraphonist Lionel Hampton's big band. After performing with Hampton's band, Jones left in 1953 and relocated to New York City where his arranging skills were in demand. Jones worked with his friend Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie while in New York.
In 1955, Jones was the leader and main arranger for singer Betty Carter's album Social Call. Jones joined the trumpet section of Dizzy Gillespie's big band in 1956, for his U.S. State Department tour of South America and the Middle East. Jones then moved to Paris in 1957 where he studied formally with Nadia Boulanger who taught Jones concepts related to orchestration.
Prior to moving to Paris, Jones recorded an album entitled This Is How I Feel about Jazz, which featured the song King Road Blues." While in Europe, Jones worked in a variety of different contexts, and toured briefly with his own big band.
Jones continued to compose, and wrote the ballad The Midnight Sun Never Sets" for Sweden's Harry Arnold Radio Band, which featured altoist Arne Domnrus.
Jones eventually made his way back to New York in 1960. He was then offered a position with Mercury Records and quickly rose through the label's ranks. Jones helped produce some very successful records while at Mercury. In 1962, he also recorded Big Band Bossa Nova, which featured Clark Terry, Phil Woods, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. In 1963, he discovered singer Lesley Gore and produced her popular single It's My Party.
In the mid 1960s, Jones worked with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie for their album on Sinatra's Reprise label, entitled It Might As Well Be Swing. He conducted the band on such songs as I Believe in You." Jones achieved another milestone in 1964, when he became the first African-American record executive in America when he was appointed Vice President of Mercury Records.
Jones continued his association with Sinatra, and in 1966 he conducted and arranged Come Fly with Me" from the album Sinatra at the Sands. Jones also arranged and produced albums for Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sammy Davis Jr. during the decade was well.
Also during the 1960s, Sinatra began to work as a film composer. He composed the music for the hit movie The Pawnbroker, and also used his song Soul Bossa Nova, which had appeared on his 1962 album Big Band Bossa Nova. The song was later used by director Woody Allen in his 1969 film Take the Money and Run, and was introduced to audiences in the new millennium in comedian Michael Myers Austin Powers films.
Among the films Jones scored were The Slender Thread in 1966, In the Heat of the Night with Ray Charles in 1967, and 1968's In Cold Blood. Jones won an Oscar for Best Movie Score this last film. Jones later composed music for television, which included the memorable themes to The Bill Cosby Show in 1969, Sanford and Son in 1972, and the television miniseries Roots in 1977.
In 1974, Jones almost died of a cerebral aneurysm, and he was advised not to play the trumpet as it might disrupt the effects of his surgeries.
In the late seventies, when Jones worked on the music for the Motown musical The Wiz, the teenaged singer Michael Jackson asked Jones to work on his upcoming album. The result of this collaboration was Off the Wall, which was a landmark album both stylistically and commercially. Joness arrangements on the album combined disco, funk grooves with lush string arrangements and subtle but effective horn lines and counterpoints. The album sold fifteen million copies worldwide, making Michael Jackson the era's most successful pop artist.
Following the success of Off the Wall, Jones and Jackson returned to the studio in April of 1982 to begin work on a second album, Thriller. Jones and songwriter Rod Temperton crafted the majority of the music for the album, while Jackson wrote four of its nine tracks.
Thriller was released in November of 1982. Supported by the then-new videos for songs such as Billie Jean, Thriller, and Beat It, the album sold over 100 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling album of all time.
Jones also produced other successful releases in the early 1980s, including George Benson's Give Me the Night and Donna Summer's Donna Summer. In 1985, Jones assembled an all-star cast of pop, rock, and soul musicians for the We Are the World session. The single was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, to benefit the victims of famine in Ethiopia. Also in 1985, Jones scored the Steven Spielberg movie The Color Purple, which starred Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, and Oprah Winfrey.
In 1987, Jones teamed up with Michael Jackson once again for the pop singer's album Bad. Jones provided more arrangements than production as Jackson assumed more production duties than their previous collaborations. This ended up being the last album the pair worked on but it ended up selling over thirty million copies and ensured the fact that Jones and Jackson were the most successful artist-production duo in the history of recorded music.
In 1991, Jones convinced an infirm Miles Davis to perform with him at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The resulting recording was issued as Miles and Quincy Live at Montreux. This was one of the last albums Davis participated on before his death in September of that year.
Continuing his evolution as an impresario, Jones combined forces with David Salzman to form QDE, an entertainment firm that founded both Vibe and Spin magazines. The company also produced the hit television shows, including The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and MADtv.
Jones has been married three times, and has seven children, including his son Quincy Jones III, who was a key figure in the emergence of hip-hop in Sweden. Jones has also been very active with social issues and continues to support issues he finds worthy.
In 2008, Jones was named a Jazz Master by the United States' National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the nation's highest honor for a jazz musician.
Select Discography:
As Quincy Jones
The Birth of a Big Band Volume 1 (Mercury, 1959)
The Quintessence (Impulse!, 1961)
Big Band Bossa Nova (Mercury, 1962)
Q's Jook Joints (Qwest, 1995)
As either an arranger/producer/performer/conductor
With Ray Charles
Soul+Genius=Jazz (Impulse!, 1961)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
With Michael Jackson
Off the Wall (Epic, 1979)
Thriller (Epic, 1982)
Bad (Epic, 1987)
With Frank Sinatra
It Might As Well Be Swing (Reprise, 1964)
Sinatra at the Sands (Reprise, 1966)
L.A. Is My Lady (Warner, 1984)
With Sarah Vaughn
You're Mine You (Roulette, 1962)
With George Benson
Give Me the Night (1980)
Contributor: Jared Pauley
Quincy Jones, now 81 years old, has been not just an eyewitness to the evolution of 20th century music but one of its biggest players. He started as a jazz trumpeter and an arranger, and went on to be a bandleader, a film composer and a producer. Along the way, he worked with Ray Charles, Count Basie, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Paul Simon and Michael Jackson, to name a few. He produced the world's best-selling album (Michael Jackson's Thriller) and the all-star charity single "We Are the World." He's been nominated for 79 Grammys, winning 27 of them. His seven children include actress Rashida Jones: "She's a sweet little thing, so smart," he brags.
The 50 Best Michael Jackson Songs
Jones is featured in the forthcoming documentary Distortion of Sound, about how digital compression has compromised the music that we all hear today. We caught up with him in Los Angeles for a conversation about technology and his career.
Have you seen technology change music?
Yeah, that's what changes the world. I remember when Baryshnikov first came to New York in the Sixties. I asked him, "Mikhail, how the hell did you have the guts to pull out of Russia in those days?" He said, "Quincy, very simple – television. I saw Roland Petit at the Parisian Ballet, I saw ABT in NY, and I said, 'I can do that too.'" When I look back at my own lifetime, the things I saw change the most was jet planes and television. And then we got into faxes and satellites and email, and it was over, man. The Arab Spring couldn't have happened without e-mail.
How often do you play trumpet these days?
I can never play it again – I'd die. Dizzy [Gillespie] gave me his original horn, and I can't touch it. I had a brain operation: aneurysms. I have this clip in my brain. I got letters in five languages saying I can't go through anything magnetic. Given the alternative, it's an easy choice.
What did you learn from Ray Charles?
Well, everything. We met when I was 14 years old and he was 17. He used to teach me stuff in braille. He sang back then, like Nat Cole and Charles Brown, and he played alto like Charlie Parker. There was a lot of racism going on in the Forties, but every day we used to say to the world, "Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your opinion of me."
Frank Sinatra gave you your "Q" nickname?
I was living in France and one day they said, "Grace Kelly's office called, and Mr. Sinatra wants you to bring a 55-piece orchestra down to Monte Carlo for a benefit." We took a train down and at the end of the show, he said, "Great job, kid, koo-koo." I didn't hear from him for four years and then he called me and said, "Hey, Q, this is Francis, I'm in Hawaii directing a film called None But the Brave. I heard the record you did last year with Basie." It was a waltz – I did it in 4/4 with Basie so it would swing. He said, "That's the way I like to do it too. Would you consider doing an album with Basie and me?" I said hell to the yeah, went over to Hawaii, and I didn't leave Frank until he left earth.
Do you have a memory of Michael Jackson as a musician?
We started to work on The Wiz when he was about 19. He said, "I need a producer for my album," seeing if I had a personal interest in working with him. I said, "Michael, I don't want to talk about nothing but the film." But I was trying to find things that he hadn't done before. I had this song "She's Out of My Life" that Tommy Bahler wrote when his wife left him. I was saving that for Sinatra, but I said, "I want to try this with Michael, 'cause he's never had a real life experience, a genuine relationship with a woman." I saw him at the Oscars one year – he was doing "Ben," this romantic love story to a rat! So I gave the song to him, and every time we recorded it, he cried.
THE MUSIC OF QUINCY JONES: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH QUINCY JONES:
Quincy Jones --'The Birth of a Band' Album (1960)
musicdex
1/12 videos
Quincy Jones 'Birth Of A Band’-- 1960.wmv:
Quincy Jones Big Band In Germany 1960:
Quincy Jones - "Listen Up! The Lives Of Quincy Jones" 1990-- (Full Movie HD):
'Big Band Bossa Nova’ (1962) - Quincy Jones:
Quincy Jones - 'Body Heat'-- FULL ALBUM (1974) --(HQ):
A1 Body Heat -- 0:00
Vocals, Soloist -- Bruce Fisher, Leon Ware
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A2 Soul Saga (Song Of The Buffalo Soldier) -- 3:58
Effects [Vocal] -- Al Jarreau
Vocals, Soloist -- Jim Gilstrap
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A3 Everything Must Change -- 8:58
Vocals, Soloist -- Benard Ighner
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A4 Boogie Joe The Grinder -- 15:01
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A5 Reprise: Everything Must Change -- 18:11
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B1 One Track Mind -- 19:12
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B2 Just A Man -- 25:28
Vocals, Soloist -- Quincy Jones
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B3 Along Came Betty -- 28:59
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B4 If I Ever Lose This Heaven -- 33:48
Effects [Vocal] -- Al Jarreau
Vocals, Soloist -- Leon Ware, Minnie Riperton
"Theme From The Pawnbroker" (Instrumental)—film soundtrack composed by Quincy Jones, 1964:
Producer: Quincy Jones
Composer, Author: Quincy Jones
Music Publisher: Pawnbroker Music Corp.
Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby - The Original Jam Sessions 1969 - full album:
The Original Jam Sessions 1969 is a 2004 released album by Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby recorded as backing music for The Bill Cosby Show in 1969.
Released June 22, 2004
Recorded July–September, 1969, Warner Brothers/Seven Arts, Burbank, California
Genre Jazz
Length 52:43
Label Concord Records
Producer Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones - "Hicky Burr”:
Quincy Jones-- "Ironside Theme”:
Quincy Jones-- Smackwater Jack Album 1971:
Woodwinds-Jerome Richardson, Hubert Laws and Peter Christlieb
Trumpets/Flugelhorns-Ernest Royal, Eugene Young, Marvin Stamm, Joe Newman, Buddy Childers and Freddie ubbard
Trombones-Wayne Andre, Garnett Brown
Bass Trombones-Dick Hixon, Alan Raph and Tony Studd
Guitars-Eric Gayle, Jim Hall, Joe Beck, Arthur Adams and Freddie Robinson
Keyboards-Bobby Scott, Bob James, Jack Byard, Monty Alexander and Joe Sample
Drums/Percussion-Grady Tate, Larry Bunker, Paul Humphreys and George Devns
Bass-Ray Brown, Chuck Rainey, Bob Crenshaw and Carole Kaye
Quincy Jones--"The Streetbeater" aka "Sanford & Son" Theme:
A2 Walking In Space 4:05
Flute [Solo] – Hubert Laws
Tenor Saxophone [Solo] – Roland Kirk
Trombone [Solo] – Jimmy Cleveland
Trumpet [Solo] – Freddie Hubbard
Vocals [Solo] – Valerie Simpson
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B1 Killer Joe 16:02
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B2 Love And Peace 21:14
Electric Bass – Chuck Rainey
Tenor Saxophone [Solo] – Hubert Laws
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B3 I Never Told You 27:04
Soprano Saxophone [Solo] – Jerome Richardson
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B4 Oh Happy Day 31:22
http://www.ascap.com/press/2012/20120605-quincy-jones
New York, NY, June 6, 2012: The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) will honor songwriter, composer, producer, arranger and entertainment industry legend Quincy Jones with the ASCAP Founders Award during its 25th Annual Rhythm & Soul Music Awards. The invitation-only event will take place on Friday, June 29th, 2012, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
The ASCAP Founders Award is among the most prestigious honors that ASCAP gives to songwriters and composers who have made pioneering contributions to music by inspiring and influencing their fellow music creators. Each recipient is a musical innovator who possesses a unique style of creative genius that will enrich generations to come. Past recipients include Sean "Diddy" Combs, Rod Stewart, Dr. Dre, Patti Smith, Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Smokey Robinson, Paul McCartney, Ashford & Simpson, and Berry Gordy Jr. & Motown Industries.
Named by TIME Magazine as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, Quincy Jones's career in the entertainment industry has spanned an impressive six decades, during which time he's played the role of composer, record producer, artist, film producer, arranger, conductor, instrumentalist, TV producer, record company executive, magazine founder, multi-media entrepreneur and humanitarian. Jones has earned a record 79 Grammy nominations and won a total of 27, and the celebrated Grammy Living Legend Award in 1991. One of the most prolific record producers ever, Jones has worked with countless music legends, including Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis and Céline Dion, among many others. Perhaps most notable, however, is his work in producing both the historic "We Are the World" charity single and pop icon Michael Jackson's Thriller. "We Are the World" which Jones also conducted, went on to become the fastest and best-selling American pop song of all time, with sales in excess of 20 million copies. Similarly, Thriller has sold an estimated 110 million copies worldwide since its release in 1982, making it the single best-selling album of all time. As a record company executive, Jones remains highly active in the recording field as the guiding force behind his own Qwest Records.
"Quincy Jones's contributions to the history of American music are immeasurable. With over 50 years experience working with the biggest names in music and in nearly every genre, he is easily one of the most influential figures in music history," said ASCAP President and Chairman Paul Williams. "He has had - and continues to have - a significant and long-lasting effect on the music community. As a pioneering composer and someone who has shaped the sound of American music, he is a clear and obvious choice for The ASCAP Founders Award."
The 25th Annual Rhythm & Soul Music Awards will celebrate the songwriters and publishers of the most performed ASCAP songs on the 2011 R&B/Hip-Hop, Rap and Gospel charts. Top awards will be given to the Songwriter of the Year, Publisher of the Year, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Song, Top Rap Song and Top Gospel Song, among others. The evening will also feature performances by several award-winning songwriters and performers.
Members of the press may apply for credentials at www.ascap.com/press/pressroom/rhythmsoulawards
About ASCAP
Established in 1914, ASCAP is the first and leading U.S. Performing Rights Organization (PRO) representing the world's largest repertory totaling over 8.5 million copyrighted musical works of every style and genre from more than 435,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members. ASCAP has representation arrangements with similar foreign organizations so that the ASCAP repertory is represented in nearly every country around the world where copyright law exists. ASCAP protects the rights of its members and foreign affiliates by licensing the public performances of their copyrighted works and distributing royalties based upon surveyed performances. ASCAP is the only American PRO owned and governed by its writer and publisher members. www.ascap.com
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/jones_q_interview.html
Q: What did you learn while making an AMERICAN MASTERS program about Quincy Jones?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quincy_Jones
Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, conductor, arranger, composer, musician, television producer, film producer, instrumentalist, magazine founder, entertainment company executive, and humanitarian.[2] His career spans six decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations,[3] 28 Grammys,[3] including a Grammy Legend Award in 1991.
Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor, before moving on to work prolifically in pop music and film scores.
In 1968, Jones and his songwriting partner Bob Russell became the first African Americans to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, their "The Eyes of Love" for the Universal Pictures film Banning. That same year, Jones was the first African American to be nominated twice within the same year for an Academy Award for Best Original Score, as he was also nominated for his work on the film In Cold Blood (1967). In 1971, Jones was the first African American to be named as the musical director and conductor of the Academy Awards ceremony. In 1995 he was the first African American to receive the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the African American who has been nominated for the most Oscars; each has received seven nominations.
Jones was the producer, with Michael Jackson, of Jackson's albums Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987), as well as being the producer and conductor of the 1985 charity song "We Are the World", which went to raise funds for victims of destitution in Ethiopia.[4]
In 2013 Jones was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as the winner, alongside Lou Adler, of the Ahmet Ertegun Award.[5] Among his awards, Jones was named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century.[2]
EXTERNAL VIDEO:
Quincy Jones hosted an episode of the long-running NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live on February 10, 1990 (during SNL's 15th season). The episode was notable for having 10 musical guests[37] (the most any SNL episode has ever had in its near-40 years on the air): Tevin Campbell, Andrae Crouch, Sandra Crouch, rappers Kool Moe Dee and Big Daddy Kane, Melle Mel, Quincy D III, Siedah Garrett, Al Jarreau, and Take 6, and for a performance of Dizzy Gillespie's "Manteca" by The SNL Band (conducted by Quincy Jones).[37] Jones impersonated Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington, DC, in the then-recurring sketch, The Bob Waltman Special. Quincy Jones later produced his own sketch comedy show, FOX's MADtv. This competed with SNL from 1995 to 2009.
Jones's social activism began in the 1960s with his support of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jones is one of the founders of the Institute for Black American Music (IBAM), whose events aim to raise enough funds for the creation of a national library of African-American art and music. Jones is also one of the founders of the Black Arts Festival in his hometown of Chicago. In the 1970s Jones formed The Quincy Jones Workshops. Meeting at the Los Angeles Landmark Variety Arts Center, the workshops educated and honed the skills of inner city youth in musicianship, acting and songwriting. Among its Alumni were Alton Mc Clain who had a hit song with Alton Mc Clain and Destiny, and Mark Wilkins, not the Race Car Driver, who co-wrote the hit song "Havin' A Love Attack" with Mandrill, and went on to become the National Promotion Director for Punk / Thrash record label Mystic Records.
"R&B's Aaliyah dies in plane crash". BBC News. August 26, 2001.
"Quincy Jones". Quincy Jones. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
Callaway, Sue (January 28, 2007). "Fortune test drives a Mercedes Maybach with Quincy Jones – February 5, 2007". CNN. Retrieved July 18, 2009.
"Quincy Jones social activism". Biography.com. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
Busis, Hillary. "Public Enemy, Rush, Heart, Donna Summer to be inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame | The Music Mix | EW.com". Music-mix.ew.com. Retrieved December 13, 2012.
"Quincy Jones Interview –". Academy of Achievement. Retrieved March 31, 2012.
"Quincy Jones Biography (1933–)". Filmreference.com. Retrieved July 18, 2009.
"Celebrity Inspired Inspirations: Book Review « Book Reviews « Romeo Clayton – Reflecting on Life and Personal Finance". Romeoclayton.com. Retrieved March 31, 2012.
"Quincy Jones: The Story of an American Musician". Pbs.org. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
"Paul De Barros, "From his Great Depression childhood in Seattle, Quincy Jones dared to dream"". Catholic.org. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
Brunner, Jim (March 25, 2007). "Federal bench nominee Jones wins high praise from both parties". The Seattle Times. Retrieved July 16, 2011.
"Quincy Jones: Seattle's Own Music Man". Northwest Prime Time. September 1, 2013. Retrieved July 8, 2014.
Feist, Jonathan (1999). Masters of Music: Conversations with Berklee Greats. Berklee Press. p. 177. ISBN 9780634006425.
Jones, Quincy. (2002) Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones, Random House, At Google Books. Retrieved July 26, 2013
"Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones (1990)". IMDb.com. Retrieved December 13, 2012.
"Quincy Jones". Biography.com. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
"About". Quincy Jones. Retrieved 2014-05-23.
"Quincy Jones". Notablebiographies.com. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
Thigpen, David E. (October 4, 1993). "The Last Great Set". TIME. Retrieved December 13, 2012.
"Quincy Jones". quincyjones.com. August 25, 2008. Retrieved July 18, 2009.
"BBC China | Michael Jackson Photo Gallery 迈克•杰克逊影集". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
"Quincy Jones snubs chance to team up with Michael Jackson , News , NME.COM". NME. UK <!. May 25, 2007. Retrieved July 18, 2009.
James, Frank (June 25, 2009). "Michael Jackson Dead at 49". The Two-Way. NPR. Retrieved December 9, 2010.
"Miriam Coleman, "Quincy Jones Sues Michael Jackson's Estate"". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
Gardner, Eriq (October 25, 2013). "Quincy Jones Files $10M Lawsuit Over Michael Jackson Music (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter.
ABC News. "Quincy Jones Sues Michael Jackson's Estate". ABC News. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
"BBC News – US music producer Quincy Jones sues Jackson estate". Bbc.co.uk. October 26, 2013. Retrieved 2014-05-23.
(Quincy Jones) Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones, Doubleday, 2001, pp. 129–132.
(Jones), pp. 179–83.
Live and Swingin': The Ultimate Rat Pack Collection, Reprise R2 73922, 2003 (CD & DVD)
video tape Frank Sinatra. Good Times Home Video, No. 05-09845. One of a set of five tapes. 1999?
on the VHS tape,Frank Sinatra: Portrait of an Artist, MGM/UA Video, 1985, MV400648.
Elfmanlas, Doug (2013-04-13). "Quincy Jones shares stories of old Vegas". Reviewjournal.com. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
Brazilian Television, Rede Bandeirantes, 2006, Flash Program
"AllBrazilianMusic, Ivan Lins from A to Z". Allbrazilianmusic.com. October 18, 2000. Archived from the original on August 6, 2007. Retrieved July 18, 2009.
Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones page 233
"Saturday Night Live: Quincy Jones Episode Trivia". TV.com. Retrieved July 18, 2009.
Blair, Elizabeth (January 16, 2009). "Does U.S. Need A Culture Czar?". NPR. Retrieved July 18, 2009.
"Brainstorm: Do We Need a U.S. Minister of Culture?". Chronicle.com. January 15, 2009. Retrieved July 18, 2009.
trandall517 (April 19, 2014). "Keep on Keepin' On (2014)". IMDb. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
"The Distortion of sound". Distortionofsound.com. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
"Quincy Jones Biography". Biography.com. Retrieved 2014-05-23.
"Maybach Family Foundation". Webcitation.org. Retrieved 2014-05-23.
John Schaefer interview with Quincy Jones on Soundcheck, November 14, 2008
Perry, Suzanne (November 26, 2008). "Online Petition Asks Obama to Create Secretary of the Arts Position". The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Retrieved December 13, 2012.
"Should US have a Minister of the Arts". Deadline Hollywood Daily. Retrieved July 18, 2009.
[1][dead link]
"Ability Magazine: Quincy Jones Interview with Chet Cooper" (2011)". Retrieved April 3, 2012.
"Quincy Jones on his Welsh roots". British Broadcasting Corporation. July 4, 2009. Retrieved April 27, 2012.
"Quincy Jones". AllMusic. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
"5 Things You Didn't Know about Quincy Jones". Mental Floss. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
[2][dead link]
"New DNA test results trace Oprah Winfrey's ancestry to Liberia / Zambia : Zambia News". Zambia News. February 6, 2006.
"Some Notes on Quincy Jones's Roots". Genealogy Magazine. March 14, 1993. Retrieved March 31, 2012.
"Michelle's Great-great-great-granddaddy and Yours?". Theroot.com. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
Callaway, Sue (January 28, 2007). "Fortune test drives a Mercedes Maybach with Quincy Jones – February 5, 2007". CNN. Retrieved July 18, 2009.
"Quincy Jones Trivia – Quincy Jones Information and Facts". Whosdatedwho.com. Retrieved 2014-05-23.
"Music Legend Quincy Jones to Receive the Visionary Award". LA Press Club. 2014-09-22. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
He has won 26 Grammy Awards and been nominated 76 times, an all-time record. He has composed 33 major motion picture scores, has been nominated for seven Academy Awards, and was awarded the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He has earned world-wide acclaim as conductor and producer of the historic "We Are the World" (the best-selling single of all time), and produced the best-selling album in the history of the recording industry: Michael Jackson's Thriller. As a creator of new music, he has shuffled pop, soul, hip-hop, jazz, classical, African and Brazilian music into a dazzling fusion all his own. In 1964, when he was named a vice-president of Mercury Records, he became the first African-American to hold a high-level executive position in a white-owned record company. And after composing the score for Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker in 1965, he was the first black composer embraced by the Hollywood establishment. This year, Ebony Magazine named Jones the most powerful black person in Hollywood.
By 13, Quincy Jones, grandson of a Mississippi slave, had tried all the instruments in his school band in suburban Seattle before settling on the trumpet. His best friend was a local singer and pianist three years his senior named Ray Charles. Together, they played all kinds of music for all kinds of people--a situation that would be emblematic of his entire career. "At school, we were playing John Philip Sousa and classical concert-band music," says Jones. "We'd play dinner music at the white tennis clubs, and later we'd play hard rhythm and blues at the black social clubs. Then we'd go to the red-light district and play for strippers and comics, and then play bebop into the early morning-it was the greatest life in the world."
Eventually, Jones accepted an offer to go on the road with bandleader Lionel Hampton, and this stint led to works as arranger, and throughout the 50s he wrote charts for Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington, Cannonball Adderley, and his old friend Ray Charles.
By 1956, Jones was performing as a trumpeter and music director with the Dizzy Gillespie band on State Department-sponsored tours of the Middle East and South America and in 1957 he settled in Paris where he studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen, and worked as a music director for Barclay Disques, where he recorded the young Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour.
In 1964, Jones returned to the United States to take the Mercury Records position and also composed his first film score--The Pawnbroker, which was so successful that he left Mercury and moved to Los Angeles. His film credits now include Walk Don't Run, The Slender Thread, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night, A Dancy in Aspic, MacKenna's Gold, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, Cactus Flower, and The Getaway. His career in film reached a high point when he co-produced Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple, which was nominated for 11 Oscars. For television, Jones wrote the theme music for "Ironside" (the first synthesizer-based TV theme song), "Sanford and Son," "The Bill Cosby Show" and won an Emmy Award for the mini-series "Roots."
Back in the recording studio, Jones recorded a series of chart-topping, Grammy-winning albums and in 1982 he and Michael Jackson made history with Thriller, which sold over 30 million copies and produced an unprecedented six Top Ten singles.
In the early '90s, became co-CEO and chairman of Quincy Jones/David Salzman Entertainment (QDE), a co-venture with Time-Warner, Inc, which encompasses multi-media programming for current and future technologies, including theatrical motion pictures and television programs. He also runs his own record label, Qwest Records and is chairman and CEO of Qwest Broadcasting, one of the largest minority-owned broadcasting companies in the United States.
Quincy Jones is also a lifelong activist. He was a major supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr.'s Operation Breadbasket, and after King's death, he served on the board of Jesse Jackson's People United to Save Humanity. An ongoing concern throughout his life has been to foster appreciation of African-American music and culture and to this end he helped form the Institute for Black American Music, which was instrumental in establishing a national library of African-American art and music. Jones is also the founder of the annual Black Arts Festival in his hometown of Chicago.
http://www.biography.com/people/quincy-jones-9357524
Quincy Jones Biography
Children's Activist, Music Producer, Television Producer, Songwriter, Trumpet Player (1933–)
Quincy Jones is best known as a composer and record producer for legendary musicians such as Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Celene Dion and Aretha Franklin.
Synopsis
Quincy Jones was convinced at an early age to explore music by his teenage friend Ray Charles. He played in various bands through the 50's, began composing for film and television in the mid 60's and eventually produced over 50 scores. He has worked with musicians Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and Celine Dion. He's also the most Grammy-nominated artist in history, with 79 nominations and 27 wins. Jones founded a charity for youth in 1985.
Early Career
Famed musician Quincy Jones was born Quincy Delight Jr. on March 14, 1933, in Chicago, Illinois. A multifaceted jazz and pop figure who became the most Grammy-nominated artist in history with 79 nominations and 27 wins, he began with his Seattle teenage friend Ray Charles, who interested him in arranging. He played trumpet and arranged for Lionel Hampton (1951-3), then worked as a freelance arranger on many jazz sessions. He served as musical director for Dizzy Gillespie's overseas big-band tour (1956), worked for Barclay Records in Paris (1957-8), and led an all-star big band for the European production of Harold Arlen's blues opera, "Free and Easy" (1959).
Returning to New York, Jones composed and arranged for Count Basie, Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan, while holding an executive post at Mercury Records and producing his own increasingly pop-oriented records. In the mid-1960s he began composing for films and television, eventually producing over 50 scores and serving as a trailblazing African-American musician in the Hollywood arena.
Jones produced Aretha Franklin's 1973 album Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky).
Qwest Productions
In 1975, Jones founded Qwest Productions, for which he arranged and produced hugely successful albums by Frank Sinatra and other major pop figures. In 1978, he produced the soundtrack for the musical adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, The Wiz, starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. In 1982, Jones's produced Michael Jackson's all-time best-selling album Thriller.
In June 2009, a statement on his website regarding the sudden death of Jackson, Jones stated "I am absolutely devastated at this tragic and unexpected news. For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don't have the words. Divinity brought our souls together on The Wiz and allowed us to do what we were able to throughout the 80's. To this day, the music we created together on Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad is played in every corner of the world and the reason for that is because he had it all... talent, grace, professionalism and dedication. He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I've lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him."
Philanthropy
In 1985, Quincy Jones used his clout among major American recording artists to record the much celebrated anthem "We Are the World" to raise money for victims of famine in Ethiopia. His work on behalf of social causes has spanned his career, including the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, which built more than 100 homes in South Africa in 2001. The charity aims to connect youths with technology, education, culture and music and sponsors an intercultural exchange between teens in Los Angeles and South Africa.
Ventures Beyond Music
Jones also produced the 1985 film The Color Purple directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Danny Glover; the television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air starring Will Smith (1990-96) and published the magazines Vibe and SPIN. In 1990, Quincy Jones formed Quincy Jones Entertainment (QJE), a co-venture with Time Warner, Inc.
Jones has been married three times; to Jeri Caldwell from 1957 to 1966 (they have one daughter), to Ulla Andersson from 1967 to 1974 (they have a son and a daughter), and to Peggy Lipton from 1974 to 1990 (they have two daughters). He also has two daughters from prior relationships. Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones was published in 2001.
http://www.jazz.com/encyclopedia/jones-quincy-delight
Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians
Jones, Quincy (Delight)
The key to Quincy Jones's success has always been great ears, which were built by jazz. From his start in Lionel Hampton's big band, he went on to make key contributions to the careers of performers ranging from Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown to Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson. He has progressively worked as a performer, arranger and composer, and ultimately became the most successful music producer in history.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he produced two of the most commercially successful albums in music history, Michael Jackson's Off the Wall and Thriller. He was also helped create a media conglomerate which founded Vibe magazine and produced such hit television shows as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
Quincy Delight Jones was born on March 14th, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Quincy Senior, was a professional basketball player, while his mother Sarah Frances was a financial executive. Quincy Junior moved with his mother when he was ten years old to Seattle, Washington.
He soon took up various brass instruments before settling on the trumpet. As a teenager, Jones befriended a young musician by the name of Ray Charles, who gave the budding trumpeter lessons on harmony and other aspects of music theory. In high school, Jones studied trumpet with Clark Terry, and performed with the likes of Billie Holiday. He studied at the University of Seattle for a short time, before accepting a music scholarship to attend the newly formed Schillinger House in Boston, which later became the Berklee School, and then Berklee College, of Music.
Jones didn't stay in college for long. He left before his first year was over to take a position playing trumpet for vibraphonist Lionel Hampton's big band. After performing with Hampton's band, Jones left in 1953 and relocated to New York City where his arranging skills were in demand. Jones worked with his friend Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie while in New York.
In 1955, Jones was the leader and main arranger for singer Betty Carter's album Social Call. Jones joined the trumpet section of Dizzy Gillespie's big band in 1956, for his U.S. State Department tour of South America and the Middle East. Jones then moved to Paris in 1957 where he studied formally with Nadia Boulanger who taught Jones concepts related to orchestration.
Prior to moving to Paris, Jones recorded an album entitled This Is How I Feel about Jazz, which featured the song King Road Blues." While in Europe, Jones worked in a variety of different contexts, and toured briefly with his own big band.
Jones continued to compose, and wrote the ballad The Midnight Sun Never Sets" for Sweden's Harry Arnold Radio Band, which featured altoist Arne Domnrus.
Jones eventually made his way back to New York in 1960. He was then offered a position with Mercury Records and quickly rose through the label's ranks. Jones helped produce some very successful records while at Mercury. In 1962, he also recorded Big Band Bossa Nova, which featured Clark Terry, Phil Woods, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. In 1963, he discovered singer Lesley Gore and produced her popular single It's My Party.
In the mid 1960s, Jones worked with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie for their album on Sinatra's Reprise label, entitled It Might As Well Be Swing. He conducted the band on such songs as I Believe in You." Jones achieved another milestone in 1964, when he became the first African-American record executive in America when he was appointed Vice President of Mercury Records.
Jones continued his association with Sinatra, and in 1966 he conducted and arranged Come Fly with Me" from the album Sinatra at the Sands. Jones also arranged and produced albums for Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sammy Davis Jr. during the decade was well.
Also during the 1960s, Sinatra began to work as a film composer. He composed the music for the hit movie The Pawnbroker, and also used his song Soul Bossa Nova, which had appeared on his 1962 album Big Band Bossa Nova. The song was later used by director Woody Allen in his 1969 film Take the Money and Run, and was introduced to audiences in the new millennium in comedian Michael Myers Austin Powers films.
Among the films Jones scored were The Slender Thread in 1966, In the Heat of the Night with Ray Charles in 1967, and 1968's In Cold Blood. Jones won an Oscar for Best Movie Score this last film. Jones later composed music for television, which included the memorable themes to The Bill Cosby Show in 1969, Sanford and Son in 1972, and the television miniseries Roots in 1977.
In 1974, Jones almost died of a cerebral aneurysm, and he was advised not to play the trumpet as it might disrupt the effects of his surgeries.
In the late seventies, when Jones worked on the music for the Motown musical The Wiz, the teenaged singer Michael Jackson asked Jones to work on his upcoming album. The result of this collaboration was Off the Wall, which was a landmark album both stylistically and commercially. Joness arrangements on the album combined disco, funk grooves with lush string arrangements and subtle but effective horn lines and counterpoints. The album sold fifteen million copies worldwide, making Michael Jackson the era's most successful pop artist.
Following the success of Off the Wall, Jones and Jackson returned to the studio in April of 1982 to begin work on a second album, Thriller. Jones and songwriter Rod Temperton crafted the majority of the music for the album, while Jackson wrote four of its nine tracks.
Thriller was released in November of 1982. Supported by the then-new videos for songs such as Billie Jean, Thriller, and Beat It, the album sold over 100 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling album of all time.
Jones also produced other successful releases in the early 1980s, including George Benson's Give Me the Night and Donna Summer's Donna Summer. In 1985, Jones assembled an all-star cast of pop, rock, and soul musicians for the We Are the World session. The single was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, to benefit the victims of famine in Ethiopia. Also in 1985, Jones scored the Steven Spielberg movie The Color Purple, which starred Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, and Oprah Winfrey.
In 1987, Jones teamed up with Michael Jackson once again for the pop singer's album Bad. Jones provided more arrangements than production as Jackson assumed more production duties than their previous collaborations. This ended up being the last album the pair worked on but it ended up selling over thirty million copies and ensured the fact that Jones and Jackson were the most successful artist-production duo in the history of recorded music.
In 1991, Jones convinced an infirm Miles Davis to perform with him at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The resulting recording was issued as Miles and Quincy Live at Montreux. This was one of the last albums Davis participated on before his death in September of that year.
Continuing his evolution as an impresario, Jones combined forces with David Salzman to form QDE, an entertainment firm that founded both Vibe and Spin magazines. The company also produced the hit television shows, including The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and MADtv.
Jones has been married three times, and has seven children, including his son Quincy Jones III, who was a key figure in the emergence of hip-hop in Sweden. Jones has also been very active with social issues and continues to support issues he finds worthy.
In 2008, Jones was named a Jazz Master by the United States' National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the nation's highest honor for a jazz musician.
Select Discography:
As Quincy Jones
The Birth of a Big Band Volume 1 (Mercury, 1959)
The Quintessence (Impulse!, 1961)
Big Band Bossa Nova (Mercury, 1962)
Q's Jook Joints (Qwest, 1995)
As either an arranger/producer/performer/conductor
With Ray Charles
Soul+Genius=Jazz (Impulse!, 1961)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
With Michael Jackson
Off the Wall (Epic, 1979)
Thriller (Epic, 1982)
Bad (Epic, 1987)
With Frank Sinatra
It Might As Well Be Swing (Reprise, 1964)
Sinatra at the Sands (Reprise, 1966)
L.A. Is My Lady (Warner, 1984)
With Sarah Vaughn
You're Mine You (Roulette, 1962)
With George Benson
Give Me the Night (1980)
Contributor: Jared Pauley
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/quincy-jones-best-stories-about-working-with-mj-sinatra-and-ray-20140708
Quincy Jones' Best Stories About Working With MJ, Sinatra and Ray
The musician and producer talks new documentary 'Distortion of Sound' and half a century of music business memories
Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson.
Ron Galella/WireImage
Quincy Jones, now 81 years old, has been not just an eyewitness to the evolution of 20th century music but one of its biggest players. He started as a jazz trumpeter and an arranger, and went on to be a bandleader, a film composer and a producer. Along the way, he worked with Ray Charles, Count Basie, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Paul Simon and Michael Jackson, to name a few. He produced the world's best-selling album (Michael Jackson's Thriller) and the all-star charity single "We Are the World." He's been nominated for 79 Grammys, winning 27 of them. His seven children include actress Rashida Jones: "She's a sweet little thing, so smart," he brags.
The 50 Best Michael Jackson Songs
Jones is featured in the forthcoming documentary Distortion of Sound, about how digital compression has compromised the music that we all hear today. We caught up with him in Los Angeles for a conversation about technology and his career.
Have you seen technology change music?
Yeah, that's what changes the world. I remember when Baryshnikov first came to New York in the Sixties. I asked him, "Mikhail, how the hell did you have the guts to pull out of Russia in those days?" He said, "Quincy, very simple – television. I saw Roland Petit at the Parisian Ballet, I saw ABT in NY, and I said, 'I can do that too.'" When I look back at my own lifetime, the things I saw change the most was jet planes and television. And then we got into faxes and satellites and email, and it was over, man. The Arab Spring couldn't have happened without e-mail.
How often do you play trumpet these days?
I can never play it again – I'd die. Dizzy [Gillespie] gave me his original horn, and I can't touch it. I had a brain operation: aneurysms. I have this clip in my brain. I got letters in five languages saying I can't go through anything magnetic. Given the alternative, it's an easy choice.
What did you learn from Ray Charles?
Well, everything. We met when I was 14 years old and he was 17. He used to teach me stuff in braille. He sang back then, like Nat Cole and Charles Brown, and he played alto like Charlie Parker. There was a lot of racism going on in the Forties, but every day we used to say to the world, "Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your opinion of me."
Frank Sinatra gave you your "Q" nickname?
I was living in France and one day they said, "Grace Kelly's office called, and Mr. Sinatra wants you to bring a 55-piece orchestra down to Monte Carlo for a benefit." We took a train down and at the end of the show, he said, "Great job, kid, koo-koo." I didn't hear from him for four years and then he called me and said, "Hey, Q, this is Francis, I'm in Hawaii directing a film called None But the Brave. I heard the record you did last year with Basie." It was a waltz – I did it in 4/4 with Basie so it would swing. He said, "That's the way I like to do it too. Would you consider doing an album with Basie and me?" I said hell to the yeah, went over to Hawaii, and I didn't leave Frank until he left earth.
Do you have a memory of Michael Jackson as a musician?
We started to work on The Wiz when he was about 19. He said, "I need a producer for my album," seeing if I had a personal interest in working with him. I said, "Michael, I don't want to talk about nothing but the film." But I was trying to find things that he hadn't done before. I had this song "She's Out of My Life" that Tommy Bahler wrote when his wife left him. I was saving that for Sinatra, but I said, "I want to try this with Michael, 'cause he's never had a real life experience, a genuine relationship with a woman." I saw him at the Oscars one year – he was doing "Ben," this romantic love story to a rat! So I gave the song to him, and every time we recorded it, he cried.
Quincy Jones --'The Birth of a Band' Album (1960)
musicdex
1/12 videos
Quincy Jones 'Birth Of A Band’-- 1960.wmv:
Quincy Jones Big Band In Germany 1960:
Quincy Jones - "Listen Up! The Lives Of Quincy Jones" 1990-- (Full Movie HD):
'Big Band Bossa Nova’ (1962) - Quincy Jones:
Quincy Jones - 'Body Heat'-- FULL ALBUM (1974) --(HQ):
A1 Body Heat -- 0:00
Vocals, Soloist -- Bruce Fisher, Leon Ware
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A2 Soul Saga (Song Of The Buffalo Soldier) -- 3:58
Effects [Vocal] -- Al Jarreau
Vocals, Soloist -- Jim Gilstrap
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A3 Everything Must Change -- 8:58
Vocals, Soloist -- Benard Ighner
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A4 Boogie Joe The Grinder -- 15:01
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A5 Reprise: Everything Must Change -- 18:11
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B1 One Track Mind -- 19:12
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B2 Just A Man -- 25:28
Vocals, Soloist -- Quincy Jones
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B3 Along Came Betty -- 28:59
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B4 If I Ever Lose This Heaven -- 33:48
Effects [Vocal] -- Al Jarreau
Vocals, Soloist -- Leon Ware, Minnie Riperton
"Theme From The Pawnbroker" (Instrumental)—film soundtrack composed by Quincy Jones, 1964:
Producer: Quincy Jones
Composer, Author: Quincy Jones
Music Publisher: Pawnbroker Music Corp.
Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby - The Original Jam Sessions 1969 - full album:
The Original Jam Sessions 1969 is a 2004 released album by Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby recorded as backing music for The Bill Cosby Show in 1969.
Released June 22, 2004
Recorded July–September, 1969, Warner Brothers/Seven Arts, Burbank, California
Genre Jazz
Length 52:43
Label Concord Records
Producer Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones - "Hicky Burr”:
Quincy Jones-- "Ironside Theme”:
Quincy Jones-- Smackwater Jack Album 1971:
Woodwinds-Jerome Richardson, Hubert Laws and Peter Christlieb
Trumpets/Flugelhorns-Ernest Royal, Eugene Young, Marvin Stamm, Joe Newman, Buddy Childers and Freddie ubbard
Trombones-Wayne Andre, Garnett Brown
Bass Trombones-Dick Hixon, Alan Raph and Tony Studd
Guitars-Eric Gayle, Jim Hall, Joe Beck, Arthur Adams and Freddie Robinson
Keyboards-Bobby Scott, Bob James, Jack Byard, Monty Alexander and Joe Sample
Drums/Percussion-Grady Tate, Larry Bunker, Paul Humphreys and George Devns
Bass-Ray Brown, Chuck Rainey, Bob Crenshaw and Carole Kaye
Quincy Jones--"The Streetbeater" aka "Sanford & Son" Theme:
Legendary producer Quincy Jones: Interview from 2014:
In
part one of a two-part interview, Jian speaks to Quincy Jones about his
musical past and most vivid memories, including how he went from "baby
gangster" to musical great, and how a near-death experience left him
with only one fear.
Quincy Jones-- 'Walking In Space' (1969)--HQ FULL ALBUM (1969):
A2 Walking In Space 4:05
Flute [Solo] – Hubert Laws
Tenor Saxophone [Solo] – Roland Kirk
Trombone [Solo] – Jimmy Cleveland
Trumpet [Solo] – Freddie Hubbard
Vocals [Solo] – Valerie Simpson
---------------------------------
B1 Killer Joe 16:02
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B2 Love And Peace 21:14
Electric Bass – Chuck Rainey
Tenor Saxophone [Solo] – Hubert Laws
---------------------------------
B3 I Never Told You 27:04
Soprano Saxophone [Solo] – Jerome Richardson
---------------------------------
B4 Oh Happy Day 31:22
http://www.ascap.com/press/2012/20120605-quincy-jones
Quincy Jones to Be Honored with ASCAP's Prestigious Founders Award at the 25th Annual Rhythm & Soul Awards
New York, NY, June 6, 2012: The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) will honor songwriter, composer, producer, arranger and entertainment industry legend Quincy Jones with the ASCAP Founders Award during its 25th Annual Rhythm & Soul Music Awards. The invitation-only event will take place on Friday, June 29th, 2012, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
The ASCAP Founders Award is among the most prestigious honors that ASCAP gives to songwriters and composers who have made pioneering contributions to music by inspiring and influencing their fellow music creators. Each recipient is a musical innovator who possesses a unique style of creative genius that will enrich generations to come. Past recipients include Sean "Diddy" Combs, Rod Stewart, Dr. Dre, Patti Smith, Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Smokey Robinson, Paul McCartney, Ashford & Simpson, and Berry Gordy Jr. & Motown Industries.
Named by TIME Magazine as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, Quincy Jones's career in the entertainment industry has spanned an impressive six decades, during which time he's played the role of composer, record producer, artist, film producer, arranger, conductor, instrumentalist, TV producer, record company executive, magazine founder, multi-media entrepreneur and humanitarian. Jones has earned a record 79 Grammy nominations and won a total of 27, and the celebrated Grammy Living Legend Award in 1991. One of the most prolific record producers ever, Jones has worked with countless music legends, including Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis and Céline Dion, among many others. Perhaps most notable, however, is his work in producing both the historic "We Are the World" charity single and pop icon Michael Jackson's Thriller. "We Are the World" which Jones also conducted, went on to become the fastest and best-selling American pop song of all time, with sales in excess of 20 million copies. Similarly, Thriller has sold an estimated 110 million copies worldwide since its release in 1982, making it the single best-selling album of all time. As a record company executive, Jones remains highly active in the recording field as the guiding force behind his own Qwest Records.
"Quincy Jones's contributions to the history of American music are immeasurable. With over 50 years experience working with the biggest names in music and in nearly every genre, he is easily one of the most influential figures in music history," said ASCAP President and Chairman Paul Williams. "He has had - and continues to have - a significant and long-lasting effect on the music community. As a pioneering composer and someone who has shaped the sound of American music, he is a clear and obvious choice for The ASCAP Founders Award."
The 25th Annual Rhythm & Soul Music Awards will celebrate the songwriters and publishers of the most performed ASCAP songs on the 2011 R&B/Hip-Hop, Rap and Gospel charts. Top awards will be given to the Songwriter of the Year, Publisher of the Year, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Song, Top Rap Song and Top Gospel Song, among others. The evening will also feature performances by several award-winning songwriters and performers.
Members of the press may apply for credentials at www.ascap.com/press/pressroom/rhythmsoulawards
About ASCAP
Established in 1914, ASCAP is the first and leading U.S. Performing Rights Organization (PRO) representing the world's largest repertory totaling over 8.5 million copyrighted musical works of every style and genre from more than 435,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members. ASCAP has representation arrangements with similar foreign organizations so that the ASCAP repertory is represented in nearly every country around the world where copyright law exists. ASCAP protects the rights of its members and foreign affiliates by licensing the public performances of their copyrighted works and distributing royalties based upon surveyed performances. ASCAP is the only American PRO owned and governed by its writer and publisher members. www.ascap.com
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/jones_q_interview.html
AMERICAN MASTERS Online presents an extended interview with "Quincy Jones" filmmaker Michael Kantor
Q: What did you learn while making an AMERICAN MASTERS program about Quincy Jones?
A: There were two stories that I will never forget. One
happened to make it into the show, when Quincy's first wife Jeri
described his approach to money when they were starting out:
Quincy had an attitude about money, that he didn't want to worry about
it, that he believed it would come. I worried about money all the time,
and I'd try to talk to him about it, and I'd say, you know, well, you
know, I'd try to talk to him, and he'd say , "Oh, honey, not before
breakfast," "Oh, not before lunch," "Oh, not before dinner," "Oh, not
before we go to bed," "Well, not today," [laughs] you know, and he'd
say, "Well, all I can do is my very best, and I'm doing my very best.
And that's all I can do. So I just can't -- I just can't worry about
it, you know?"
This is a quote about a guy who is now worth, I don't know, mucho
dinero. It just struck me as really honest, and truthful, and inspiring
to all of us who are just eaking by, but trying to do their very best.
The other quote was by his daughter Jolie, who said:
I always continually learn from him to take the higher road in a
situation and to not get engaged in the lower, petty, you know, stuff
that doesn't allow you to move above and beyond the situation. And I've
seen him in a lot of difficult situations where people have not, in my
opinion, dealt rightly with him in certain areas, and he will just go
above it.
Also a good idea for all of us in torment over all kinds of petty issues.
Q: Was there anything that you had to omit from the show that you really wanted to keep in?
A: I really wanted to do a section on how Quincy uses language in his
everyday life. He has a nickname for everyone - Sack, Bump, Sister
Chloe, Mouse, 69, Punkin, etc. etc. I had hoped to be able to include
Quincy's favorite expressions, such as when he describes being in front
of a band as if he was "Dracula at the bloodbank." Also, we had created
a really interesting section about the Listen Up Foundation and its
work in South Africa that featured both Ms. Shabazz (daughter of Malcolm
X and one of the board members of this organization) and Lisette
Derouaux, who was leading this charitable organization and has been
Quincy's partner for the past five years. Unfortunately, this section
felt like it was from a different documentary - it didn't tie in that
clearly with Quincy's career, so we had to cut it.
There is no question in my mind that Quincy closest relationship was
with his brother Lloyd, and I wanted to in some way acknowledge this
intense bond, but I couldn't figure out an artful way to dramatize it,
so the film ended up focusing mainly on Quincy and his father. I guess
if you wanted to know more about his brother, you could read Q's
autobiography, which goes deeply into their relationship.
Also, there was so much music that Quincy created that couldn't be
incorporated into the show. Check out "Boogie Joe, The Grinder" from
his Body Heat Album, or anything he did with the Brothers Johnson, or
the wacky "Hickey Burr" piece that Quincy created with Bill Cosby. I
could go on forever.
Q: What's your favorite movie that Quincy scored?
A: I've probably only seen about half a dozen of the 35+ films
that Quincy has scored. I'd really love to see "Honky" someday... But
my personal favorite has to be "The Pawnbroker." Produced by my
father-in-law, Ely Landau, and directed by Sidney Lumet, it is an
incredibly intense movie that connects the Holocaust to Harlem in a
dramatic, troubling, and moving way. This is the film that broke the
Motion Picture Code's censorship of frontal nudity, and in fact a range
of clergymen came forward and argued that the use of nudity in this film
had an unmistakably clear moral purpose. It is really hard to believe
that this is Quincy's first film score - it's full of dynamic jazz that
drives the story along.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quincy_Jones
Quincy Jones
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Quincy Jones | |
|---|---|
Jones in 2014.
|
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. |
| Born | March 14, 1933 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, conductor, producer, arranger, composer, executive |
| Instruments | Trumpet, french horn, drums, vocals, piano, synthesizer |
| Years active | 1951–present |
| Labels | Warner Bros, Columbia, Mercury, Qwest, Epic, ABC, Interscope |
| Associated acts | Lionel Hampton, Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Toots Thielemans, Sarah Vaughan, Aaliyah,[1] Rod Temperton, The Brothers Johnson, Frank Sinatra, Eddie Van Halen, Dinah Washington, Nana Mouskouri, Dean Martin, Patti Austin, Tevin Campbell, Tamia, Trey Songz, Lesley Gore, Nikki Yanofsky, Michael Jackson, Caiphus Semenya |
| Website | quincyjones |
Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, conductor, arranger, composer, musician, television producer, film producer, instrumentalist, magazine founder, entertainment company executive, and humanitarian.[2] His career spans six decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations,[3] 28 Grammys,[3] including a Grammy Legend Award in 1991.
Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor, before moving on to work prolifically in pop music and film scores.
In 1968, Jones and his songwriting partner Bob Russell became the first African Americans to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, their "The Eyes of Love" for the Universal Pictures film Banning. That same year, Jones was the first African American to be nominated twice within the same year for an Academy Award for Best Original Score, as he was also nominated for his work on the film In Cold Blood (1967). In 1971, Jones was the first African American to be named as the musical director and conductor of the Academy Awards ceremony. In 1995 he was the first African American to receive the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the African American who has been nominated for the most Oscars; each has received seven nominations.
Jones was the producer, with Michael Jackson, of Jackson's albums Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987), as well as being the producer and conductor of the 1985 charity song "We Are the World", which went to raise funds for victims of destitution in Ethiopia.[4]
In 2013 Jones was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as the winner, alongside Lou Adler, of the Ahmet Ertegun Award.[5] Among his awards, Jones was named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century.[2]
EXTERNAL VIDEO:
Early life
Quincy Jones was born in 1933, on the South Side of Chicago, to Sarah Frances (née Wells) (1903-1999) and Quincy Delightt Jones, Sr (1895-1971). His father was a semi-professional baseball player and carpenter from Kentucky; his paternal grandmother was an ex-slave in Louisville.[6] They had gone to Chicago as part of the Great Migration out of the South. Sarah was a bank officer and apartment complex manager.[6][7][8] Quincy had a younger brother, Lloyd, later an engineer for the Seattle station, KOMO-TV;
he died in 1998. Quincy was introduced to music by his mother, who
always sang religious songs, and by his next door neighbor Lucy Jackson.
When he was five or six, Jackson played stride piano next door, and he
would always listen through the walls. Lucy Jackson recalled that after
he heard her that one day, she could not get him off her piano if she
tried.[9]
When the boys were young, their mother suffered from a schizophrenic breakdown and was committed to a mental institution.[6][10] His father obtained a divorce and remarried.
Jones' stepmother, Elvera, had three children of her own: Waymond,
who became a friend of the young Quincy, Theresa and Katherine.[10]
Elvera and Quincy Senior had three more children together through 1950,
after they had moved to the Northwest: Jeanette, Margie and Richard, now a judge in Seattle,[11] making a total of eight in the family.[10]
In 1943, when Jones was ten, his family moved to Bremerton, Washington, where his father got a wartime job at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.[10] After the war, the Jones family moved to Seattle, the major regional city, where Jones attended Garfield High School
near his home. He had discovered music when he was 12 and became more
deeply involved in high school, developing his skills as a trumpeter and
arranger.[6] Classmates included Charles Taylor, who played saxophone and whose mother, Evelyn Bundy, had been one of Seattle's first society jazz-band leaders. The youths began playing with a band.[10]
At the age of 14, they were playing with a National Reserve band. Jones
has said he got much more experience with music growing up in a smaller
city; otherwise, he would have faced too much competition.[6]
At the age of 14, Jones introduced himself to a 16-year-old musician from Florida Ray Charles,
after watching him play at the Black Elks Club. Jones cites Ray Charles
as an early inspiration for his own music career. He noted that Charles
overcame a disability (blindness) to achieve his musical goals. He has
credited his father's sturdy work ethic with giving him the means to
proceed, and his loving strength with holding the family together. Jones
has said his father had a saying: "Once a task is just begun, never
leave until it's done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at
all."[10]
In 1951, Jones won a scholarship to Seattle University, where a young Clint Eastwood—also a music major there—watched him play in the college band. After only one semester, Jones transferred to what is now the Berklee College of Music in Boston on another scholarship (as of 2016, Jones' application for admission is preserved on display at Berklee).[12] While studying at Berklee he played at Izzy Ort's Bar & Grille with Bunny Campbell and Preston Sandiford, whom he later cited as important musical influences.[13] He left his studies after he received an offer to tour as a trumpeter with the bandleader Lionel Hampton
and embarked on his professional career. While Jones was on the road
with Hampton, he displayed a gift for arranging songs. Jones relocated
to New York City, where he received a number of freelance commissions
arranging songs for artists including Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, and Ray Charles, by then a close friend.
Musical career
At the age of 19, Jones traveled with Lionel Hampton to Europe and said it turned him upside down, altering his view of racism in the US.
"It gave you some sense of perspective of past, present and future. It took the myopic conflict between just black and white in the United States and put it on another level because you saw the turmoil between the Armenians and the Turks, and the Cypriots and the Greeks, and the Swedes and the Danes, and the Koreans and the Japanese. Everybody had these hassles, and you saw it was a basic part of human nature, these conflicts. It opened my soul, it opened my mind."[6]
In 1956, Jones toured again as a trumpeter and musical director of the Dizzy Gillespie Band on a tour of the Middle East and South America sponsored by the United States Information Agency. Upon his return, Jones signed with ABC-Paramount Records
and started his recording career as the leader of his own band. In
1957, Quincy settled in Paris, where he studied composition and theory
with Nadia Boulanger and composer Olivier Messiaen. He also performed at the Paris Olympia. Jones became music director at Barclay Disques, a leading French record company and the licensee for Mercury Records in France.
During the 1950s, Jones successfully toured throughout Europe with a number of jazz orchestras. As musical director of Harold Arlen's jazz musical Free and Easy,
Quincy Jones took to the road again. A European tour closed in Paris in
February 1960. With musicians from the Arlen show, Jones formed his own
big band, called The Jones Boys, with eighteen artists. The band
included double bass player Eddie Jones and fellow trumpeter Reunald Jones,
and organized a tour of North America and Europe. Though the European
and American concerts met enthusiastic audiences and sparkling reviews,
concert earnings could not support a band of this size. Poor budget
planning resulted in an economic disaster; the band dissolved and the
fallout left Jones in a financial crisis. Quoted in Musician magazine, Jones said about the ordeal,
"We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving. That's when I discovered that there was music, and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two."
Irving Green, head of Mercury Records, helped Jones with a personal loan[14] and a new job as the musical director of the company's New York division. There he worked with Doug Moody, who founded Mystic Records.
1960s breakthrough and rise to prominence
In 1964, Jones was promoted to vice-president of Mercury Records,
becoming the first African American to hold this executive position.[15]
In that same year, he turned his attention to film scores, another
musical arena long closed to African Americans. At the invitation of
director Sidney Lumet, he composed the music for The Pawnbroker (1964). It was the first of his 33 major motion picture scores.
Following the success of The Pawnbroker, Jones left Mercury Records and moved to Los Angeles. After composing the film scores for Mirage and The Slender Thread in 1965, he was in constant demand as a composer. His film credits over the next seven years included Walk, Don't Run, The Deadly Affair, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night, Mackenna's Gold, The Italian Job, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Cactus Flower, The Out-of-Towners, They Call Me Mister Tibbs!, The Anderson Tapes, $ and The Getaway. In addition, he composed "The Streetbeater," which became familiar as the theme music for the television sitcom Sanford and Son, starring close friend Redd Foxx; he also composed the themes for other TV shows, including Ironside, Banacek, The Bill Cosby Show, the opening episode of Roots, and the Goodson & Todman game show Now You See It.
In the 1960s, Jones worked as an arranger for some of the most important artists of the era, including Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nana Mouskouri, Shirley Horn, Peggy Lee, and Dinah Washington. Jones's solo recordings also gained acclaim, including Walking in Space, Gula Matari, Smackwater Jack, You've Got It Bad, Girl, Body Heat, Mellow Madness, and I Heard That!!.
He is known for his 1962 tune "Soul Bossa Nova", which originated on the Big Band Bossa Nova album. "Soul Bossa Nova" was a theme used for the 1998 World Cup[citation needed], the Canadian game show Definition, the Woody Allen film Take the Money and Run, and the Austin Powers film series. It was sampled by Canadian hip hop group Dream Warriors for their song, "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style".
Jones produced all four million-selling singles for Lesley Gore during the early and mid-sixties, including "It's My Party" (UK No. 8; US No. 1), "Judy's Turn to Cry" (US No. 5), "She's a Fool" (also a US No. 5) in 1963, and "You Don't Own Me" (US No. 2 for four weeks in 1964). He continued to produce for Gore until 1966, including the Greenwich/ Barry hit "Look of Love" (US No. 27) in 1965.
In 1975, Jones founded Qwest Productions, for which he arranged and
produced hugely successful albums by Frank Sinatra and other major pop
figures. In 1978, he produced the soundtrack for The Wiz, the musical adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. In 1982, Jones' produced Michael Jackson's all-time best-selling album Thriller.[16]
Jones's 1981 album, The Dude, yielded multiple hit singles, including "Ai No Corrida" (a remake of a song by Chaz Jankel), "Just Once," and "One Hundred Ways", the latter two featuring James Ingram on lead vocals and marking Ingram's first hits.
In 1985, Jones wrote the score for the Steven Spielberg film adaptation of the Pulitzer-prize winning epistolary novel, The Color Purple, by Alice Walker. He, Jerry Goldsmith (from Twilight Zone: The Movie), and Thomas Newman (from Bridge of Spies) are the only composers besides John Williams to have scored a Spielberg theatrical film. After the 1985 American Music Awards
ceremony, Jones used his influence to draw most of the major American
recording artists of the day into a studio to record the song "We Are the World" to raise money for the victims of Ethiopia's
famine. When people marveled at his ability to make the collaboration
work, Jones explained that he'd taped a simple sign on the entrance:
"Check Your Ego At The Door".
In 1988, Quincy Jones Productions joined forces with Warner
Communications to create Quincy Jones Entertainment. He signed a
ten-picture deal with Warner Brothers and signed a two-series deal with NBC Productions. The television show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was completed in 1990, but producers of In the House (from UPN) later rejected its early concept stages. Jones produced the highly successful Fresh Prince of Bel Air (discovering Will Smith); UPN's In the House, and FOX's Madtv—which did 14 seasons on Fox.[17]
In the early 1990s, Jones started a huge, ongoing project called "The
Evolution of Black Music." Not only did the Quincy Jones Entertainment
Company produce The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but it also started a weekly talk show with his friend, Reverend Jesse Jackson, as the host.[18]
Starting in the late 1970s, Jones tried to convince Miles Davis to revive the music he had recorded on several classic albums of the 1960s, which had been arranged by Gil Evans. Davis had always refused, citing a desire not to revisit the past. In 1991, Davis, then suffering from pneumonia, relented and agreed to perform the music at a concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The resulting album from the recording, Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux, was Davis' last released album (he died several months afterward). It is considered an artistic triumph.[19]
In 1993, Jones collaborated with David Salzman to produce the concert extravaganza, An American Reunion, a celebration of Bill Clinton's
inauguration as president of the United States. The same year, Jones
joined forces with Salzman and renamed his company as Quincy Jones/David
Salzman Entertainment (QDE). QDE is a diverse company that produces
media technology, motion pictures, television programs (In the House, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and MADtv), and magazines (VIBE and Spin).
In 2001, Jones published his autobiography, Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones. On July 31, 2007, he partnered with Wizzard Media to launch the Quincy Jones Video Podcast.[20]
In each episode, Jones shares his knowledge and experience in the music
industry. The first episode features him in the studio, producing "I
Knew I Loved you" for Celine Dion. This is featured on the Ennio Morricone tribute album, We All Love Ennio Morricone. Jones is also noted for helping produce Anita Hall's CD, Send Love, which was released in 2009.
Work with Michael Jackson
While working on the film The Wiz, Michael Jackson
asked Jones to recommend some producers for his upcoming solo record.
Jones offered some names, but eventually offered to produce the record.
Jackson accepted and the resulting record, Off The Wall,
ultimately sold about 20 million copies. This made Jones the most
powerful record producer in the industry at that time. Jones' and
Jackson's next collaboration, Thriller, has sold a reputed 110 million copies and has become the highest-selling album of all time.[21] Jones also worked on Jackson's album Bad, which has sold 45 million copies. Bad
was the last time the pair worked together in the studio. Audio
interviews with Jones are featured on the 2001 special editions of Off The Wall, Thriller, and Bad.
In a 2002 interview, when asked if he would work with Jones again,
Jackson suggested he might. But, in 2007, when Jones was asked by NME,
he said "Man, please! We already did that. I have talked to him about
working with him again but I've got too much to do. I've got 900
products, I'm 74 years old."[22]
Following Jackson's death on June 25, 2009, Jones said:
| "I am absolutely devastated at this tragic and unexpected news. For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don't have the words. Divinity brought our souls together on The Wiz and allowed us to do what we were able to throughout the '80s. To this day, the music we created together on Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad is played in every corner of the world and the reason for that is because he had it all...talent, grace, professionalism and dedication. He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I've lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him.[23] | ” |
In October 2013, it was reported by the BBC and Hollywood Reporter
that Jones is suing the estate of Michael Jackson for 10 million
dollars. Jones says that MJJ Productions, a song company managed by the
singer's estate and Sony Music Entertainment, improperly re-edited songs
to deprive him of royalties and production fees; further, they broke an
agreement giving him the right to remix master recordings for albums
released after Jackson's death in 2009.[24] The songs Quincy produced for Jackson were used in the film, This Is It. Jones is filing lawsuits against the works of Michael Jackson Cirque du Soleil productions, and the 25th anniversary edition of the Bad album.[25] Quincy believes he should have received a producer credit in the film.[24][26][27]
Work with Frank Sinatra
Jones first worked with Frank Sinatra in 1958 when invited by Princess Grace to arrange a benefit concert at the Monaco Sporting Club.[28] Six years later, Sinatra hired him to arrange and conduct Sinatra's second album with Count Basie, It Might as Well Be Swing (1964). Jones conducted and arranged the singer's live album with the Basie Band, Sinatra at the Sands (1966).[29] Jones was also the arranger/conductor when Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, and Johnny Carson performed with the Basie orchestra in June 1965 in St. Louis, Missouri, in a benefit for Dismas House. The fund-raiser was broadcast to movie theaters around the country and eventually released on DVD.[30] Later that year, Jones was the arranger/conductor when Sinatra and Basie appeared on The Hollywood Palace TV show on October 16, 1965.[31] Nineteen years later, Sinatra and Jones teamed up for 1984's L.A. Is My Lady.[32] Quincy was quoted saying,
"Frank Sinatra took me to a whole new planet. I worked with him until he passed away in '98. He left me his ring. I never take it off. Now, when I go to Sicily, I don't need a passport. I just flash my ring."[33]
Brazilian culture
A great admirer of Brazilian culture, Jones is planning a film on
Brazil's "Carnival," describing it as "one of the most spectacular
spiritual events on the planet."[citation needed] The Brazilians Simone, whom he cites as "one of the world's greatest singers",[34] Ivan Lins,[35] Milton Nascimento, percussionist Paulinho Da Costa, "one of the best in the business",[36] have become close friends and partners in his recent works.
Media appearances
Jones had a brief appearance in the 1990 video for The Time song "Jerk Out". Jones was a guest actor on an episode of The Boondocks. He appeared with Ray Charles in the music video of their song "One Mint Julep" and also with Ray Charles and Chaka Khan in the music video of their song "I'll Be Good to You".
Jones during an annual meeting in 2004 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2004
Quincy Jones hosted an episode of the long-running NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live on February 10, 1990 (during SNL's 15th season). The episode was notable for having 10 musical guests[37] (the most any SNL episode has ever had in its near-40 years on the air): Tevin Campbell, Andrae Crouch, Sandra Crouch, rappers Kool Moe Dee and Big Daddy Kane, Melle Mel, Quincy D III, Siedah Garrett, Al Jarreau, and Take 6, and for a performance of Dizzy Gillespie's "Manteca" by The SNL Band (conducted by Quincy Jones).[37] Jones impersonated Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington, DC, in the then-recurring sketch, The Bob Waltman Special. Quincy Jones later produced his own sketch comedy show, FOX's MADtv. This competed with SNL from 1995 to 2009.
Jones appeared in the Walt Disney Pictures film, Fantasia 2000, introducing the set piece of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Two years later he made a cameo appearance as himself in the film Austin Powers in Goldmember.
On February 10, 2008, Jones joined Usher in presenting the Grammy Award for Album of the Year to Herbie Hancock.
On January 6, 2009, Quincy Jones appeared on NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly to discuss various aspects of his prolific career. Daly informally floated the idea that Jones should become the first minister of culture for the United States, pending the inauguration of Barack Obama
as President. Daly noted that only the US and Germany, among leading
world countries, did not have a cabinet-level position for this role.
Commentators on NPR[38] and in the Chronicle of Higher Education have also discussed the topic of a minister of culture.[39]
In February 2014, Jones appeared in "Keep on Keepin' On," a documentary about his friend Clark Terry. In the film, Terry introduces Jones to his protege, Justin Kauflin, who Jones then signs into his band and label.[40] In July 2014, Jones was starring in a documentary film, The Distortion of Sound.[41]
In September 2015, Jones was a guest on Dr. Dre's The Pharmacy on Beats 1 Radio.
Social activism
Jones at a performance of The Hot Chocolate Nutcracker, December 2010
Jones's social activism began in the 1960s with his support of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jones is one of the founders of the Institute for Black American Music (IBAM), whose events aim to raise enough funds for the creation of a national library of African-American art and music. Jones is also one of the founders of the Black Arts Festival in his hometown of Chicago. In the 1970s Jones formed The Quincy Jones Workshops. Meeting at the Los Angeles Landmark Variety Arts Center, the workshops educated and honed the skills of inner city youth in musicianship, acting and songwriting. Among its Alumni were Alton Mc Clain who had a hit song with Alton Mc Clain and Destiny, and Mark Wilkins, not the Race Car Driver, who co-wrote the hit song "Havin' A Love Attack" with Mandrill, and went on to become the National Promotion Director for Punk / Thrash record label Mystic Records.
For many years, Jones has worked closely with Bono of U2 on a number of philanthropic endeavors. He is the founder of the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation.[4]
A nonprofit organization that built more than 100 homes in South Africa
which aims to connect youths with technology, education, culture and
music.[42]
One of the organization's programs is an intercultural exchange between
underprivileged youths from Los Angeles and South Africa.
In 2004, Jones helped launch the We Are the Future (WAF) project,
which gives children in poor and conflict-ridden areas a chance to live
their childhoods and develop a sense of hope. The program is the result
of a strategic partnership between the Global Forum, the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, and Hani Masri, with the support of the World Bank,
UN agencies and major companies. The project was launched with a
concert in Rome, Italy, in front of an audience of half a million
people.
Jones supports a number of other charities including the NAACP, GLAAD, Peace Games, AmfAR and The Maybach Foundation.[43] Jones serves on the Advisory Board of HealthCorps. On July 26, 2007, he announced his endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president. But with the election of Barack Obama, Quincy Jones said that his next conversation "with President Obama [will be] to beg for a secretary of arts,"[44]
This prompted the circulation of a petition on the Internet asking
Obama to create such a Cabinet-level position in his administration.[45][46]
In 2001, Jones became an honorary member of the board of directors of The Jazz Foundation of America. He has worked with The Jazz Foundation of America[47] to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians, including those who survived Hurricane Katrina.[citation needed]
Jones and his friend John Sie, founder of Liberty Starz, worked together to create the Global Down Syndrome Foundation. They were inspired by Sie's granddaughter, Sophia, who has Down syndrome.[48]
Personal life
With the help of the author Alex Haley in 1972 and Mormon researchers in Salt Lake City, Jones discovered that his mother's ancestors included James Lanier, a relative of Sidney Lanier,
the poet. Jones said in an interview, "He had a baby with my
great-grandmother [a slave], and my grandmother was born there [on a
plantation in Kentucky]. We traced this all the way back to the Laniers,
same family as Tennessee Williams."[6] Learning that the Lanier immigrant ancestors were French Huguenot refugees, who had court musicians among their ancestors, Jones attributed some of his musicianship to them.[6] In a 2009 BBC interview, Jones said Haley also helped him learn that his father was of part Welsh ancestry.[49]
In 1974, he suffered a life-threatening brain aneurysm, so he decided to cut back on his schedule to spend time with his friends and family.[50]
Since his family and friends believed that his life was coming to an
end, they started to plan a memorial service for him. He attended his
own service with his neurologist by his side in case the excitement
overwhelmed him. Some of the entertainers at his service were Richard
Pryor, Marvin Gaye, Sarah Vaughan and Sidney Poitier.[51]
Jones has been married three times and has had other relationships; he has a total of seven children:
- Jeri Caldwell (1957 to 1966); they had a daughter, Jolie Jones (now married and using the surname Levine).[10]
- Ulla Andersson, Swedish actress, (1967 to 1974); they had two children, Martina and Quincy Jones III;[10]
- Peggy Lipton, actress, (1974 to 1990); they had two daughters, Kidada and Rashida Jones, both born in the United States, who have become actresses.[10]
- Jones had a brief affair with Carol Reynolds, and they had a daughter, Rachel Jones.[10]
- Jones dated and lived with the actress, Nastassja Kinski, from 1991 until 1995. They had a daughter, Kenya Julia Miambi Sarah Jones, born in 1993.[52]
For the 2006 PBS television program, African American Lives,
Jones had his DNA tested and genealogists researched his family history
again. His DNA admixture revealed he is predominately African with 34%
European in ancestry, found on both sides of his family. Research showed
that he has Welsh, English, French and Italian ancestry, with European
ancestry in his direct patrilineal line (Y DNA). Through his direct matrilineal line (mt DNA), he is of West African/Central African ancestry of Tikar descent, a people centered in present-day Cameroon.[53]
Other matrilineal ancestry includes European, such as Lanier male
ancestors who fought for the Confederacy, making him eligible for Sons of Confederate Veterans. Among his ancestors is Betty Washington Lewis, the sister of president George Washington.[54] Jones is also a direct descendant of Edward I of England; Edward's ancestors included Rurik, Polish, Swiss, and French nobility.[55]
Jones has never learned to drive, citing an accident in which he was a passenger (at age 14) as the reason.[56]
Honors and awards
In addition to receiving recognition specifically for his music and
arrangements, Jones has been recognized for his overall contributions to
music and humanitarian goals. He has received numerous honorary
doctorates and been invited to speak at college and university
commencement ceremonies.[6]
- Garfield High School in Seattle named a performing arts center after him.[6]
- Quincy Jones Elementary School located in South Central Los Angeles is named after him.
- He received the Humanitarian Award at the BET Awards in 2008.
- He received the John F. Kennedy Center Honors in 2001.[57]
- He received the Los Angeles Press Club Visionary Award in 2014.[58]
- He received an honorary doctorate from the Royal Academy of Music, London, in 2015.[59]
Film scores
- The Pawnbroker (1964)
- Mirage (1965)
- The Slender Thread (1965)
- The Deadly Affair (1966)
- Walk, Don't Run (1966)
- Enter Laughing (1967)
- Banning (1967)
- In the Heat of the Night (1967)
- In Cold Blood (1967)
- A Dandy in Aspic (1968)
- The Counterfeit Killer (1968)
- Jigsaw (1968)
- For Love of Ivy (1968)
- The Hell with Heroes (1968)
- The Split (1968)
- Mackenna's Gold (1969)
- The Italian Job (1969)
- Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
- The Lost Man (1969)
- John and Mary (1969)
- Cactus Flower (1969)
- Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970)
- The Out-of-Towners (1970)
- They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970)
- Brother John (1971)
- The Anderson Tapes (1971)
- Honky (1971)
- $ (1971)
- The Hot Rock (1972)
- The New Centurions (1972)
- The Getaway (1972)
- The Color Purple (1985)
Discography
Main article: Quincy Jones production discography
Awards and recognition
Further information: List of awards and nominations received by Quincy Jones
References
- "Honorary Doctorate for Quincy Jones - Royal Academy of Music". Ram.ac.uk. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Quincy Jones. |
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Wikiquote has quotations related to: Quincy Jones |
- Official website
- Quincy Jones Quincy Jones MusiCodex Page
- Quincy Jones at the Internet Movie Database
- Quincy Jones Video Interview at the Archive of American Television.
- Quincy Jones Interview at Mix Magazine Online.
- Quincy Jones: The Story of an American Musician at PBS.
- Quincy Jones Speech at Beijing University, China.
- Quincy Jones Excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project.