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In a musical career that has spanned six 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, IL, 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's 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's 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, Rufus and 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, 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. 1991 found him moving 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. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
Q&A: Quincy Jones keeps workin'
At 72, famed musician, composer, and producer says he has no plans to slow down, with movie soundtracks, a Broadway version of The Color Purple, and an animated TV show on the way.
Quincy Jones was getting on a plane to Cambodia in five hours. In conjunction with UNICEF, he was leading a coalition to bring attention to Southeast Asia's desperate need for heath care.
While there, he would present his inaugural Q Prize--an accolade to recognize young leaders who, in many ways just like Jones did, are overcoming what many consider insurmountable odds to help their people and country.
It is all part of the musician/composer/producer's Quincy Jones Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission it is to "foster a global dialogue" and help children have better lives all over the world. Jones has partnered on numerous global charitable projects with U2's Bono, including Live 8.
"From Mozambique to Bolivia and the Ivory Coast, it just blew my mind what you can do if you just try," Jones says. "We're just a raggedy Irish rock-and-roller and a bow-legged bebopper from Chicago with no agendas, making a difference. It's a nice feeling. It's good to give back, especially if you've become successful. Giving back is important."
Jones says he loves to travel for his causes because it opens his mind and creativity. It also reminds him that there is something much bigger than himself.
His friend, jazz great Ben Webster, gave Jones the advice of a lifetime when he said, "Young blood, wherever you go in the world, eat the food the people eat there, listen to the music they listen to and learn 30 or 40 words of each language." Jones says he took Webster's works "very, very seriously," and now he can converse in a number of languages, from Spanish to Greek.
Jones' work and passion keep him young at heart. At 72, he shows no sign of slowing down.
In preparation for his Cambodian trek, he had been working to complete the score for the 50 Cent film Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Six decades into a career that spans the history of modern American music, from bebop to hip-hop, the 27-time Grammy winner has just wrapped his new album, Po' No' Mo' (Interscope)--a tribute album of his greatest hits recorded with some of today's top talent. In addition, he is producing an animated series, The Dude, for MTV and producing the Broadway version of The Color Purple, a project that reunites him with production partner Oprah Winfrey.
To mark Jones' 60th anniversary this year, Qwest/DreamWorks/Universal Music Enterprises recently issued remastered versions of five key albums that feature him as a performer and/or producer: Back on the Block, Q's Jook Joint and From Q, With Love, and the soundtracks to The Color Purple and Boyz N the Hood.
Q: How was working on the 50 Cent film Get Rich or Die Tryin'?
A: Amazing. You have probably the biggest rapper in the world, who is also a nice person, which I was very happy about. That's my primary consideration always. And Jim Sheridan, the director, is a genius. He brought two of his composers to the film, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer. All three of us were working together.
Q: Has this been a different kind of experience for you than other films you have done?
A: It's a whole different thing, it's the street awareness. I identify with 50 Cent a lot because there are a lot of similarities in the neighborhoods we came up in. It's much more intense now. They didn't have automatic weapons when I was young. They had switchblades and ice picks, but it hurt just as bad. I identify with him, and I think he's a beautiful human being. This film is a real human story and represents a lot of what life in the 'hood is about. I was raised in the biggest 'hood in America, in Chicago during the Depression, so it's familiar territory.
Q: You are very active in numerous philanthropic organizations, including your own Quincy Jones Foundation. Why are charitable causes so important to you?
A: Two years ago we took five gang-bangers and went to South Africa with Habitat for Humanity and built 100 homes as a Christmas present to Nelson Mandela, who's like my brother. Tolstoy said, "My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share and no one starves while I eat." That says it all for me.
Q: What about the half-hour animated series The Dude you are producing with MTV?
A: It's something I've been trying to get people to understand since 1985. The aim of the show is to get more street awareness. It basically will be like the urban The Simpsons. It will have very cutting-edge things like teenage motherhood. My friend Aaron McGruder just did it with Boondocks. In fact, I'm in the Christmas episode. Once The Dude gets off the ground, we'll have some of the characters (from the two series) visit each other.
Q: What was the turning point in your life that put you on your path?
A: I didn't have a mother. I don't know what that word means. I had a mother that went into a mental institution when I was 7. She was a very brilliant woman; went to Boston University in the '20s and spoke 10 languages. But she had dementia praecox (the mental illness now known as schizophrenia). I used to sit in this closet, this small little closet and say to myself, "Well, somehow you've to turn this darkness into light." You have two choices in life, to get bitter and turn it against yourself, which is self-destructive, or you can find a way to turn it into light. That has been my way of dealing with life. They say if you can imagine it, then you can be it.
Q: What was it like living in the Seattle area as a child?
A: I moved to the Northwest when I was 10 years old, they didn't even know who black people were. We weren't even in the books and there were no [black] television shows, so it was like we didn't exist. Ray Charles and I used to talk about that. Who do we emulate? We didn't have the Michael Jordans and the Oprahs.
Q: Who were your role models, then?
A: We didn't know who to be. In radio, from an imagination standpoint, I used to make the Lone Ranger black. It was just in my imagination, but hey, you have to be somebody. It was an interesting challenge. Thank God it's not the same way now.
Q: Are you ever going to stop working?
A: No. I love it, baby, I can't help it. There you go. There you go. You should never finish. Never finish.
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