Quincy Jones (1933- ) is an American music producer. He is best known as the producer of “Thriller” (1982) by Michael Jackson. He has worked with everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Sinatra to Tupac Shakur and won at least 25 Grammys. He is the founder of Vibe magazine. “We Are the World” (1985), a song to raise money to help feed Ethiopia, is something he pulled together.
He is talented, fearless and tireless. When he wants to do something he goes for it and gives it everything he has got. He is cool and modest rather than full of himself.
When he was young his two heroes were Charlie Parker and Pablo Picasso. Jones noticed how Parker listened to all kinds of music, not just jazz. He also took note that he died of drugs at 34. Quite unlike Picasso who painted into his 90s.
Jones grew up in Seattle. By 15 he was so good at playing the trumpet that he started playing with jazz bands. In time he would play with such greats as Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton and Ray Charles.
But better than playing an instrument he wanted to write music as an arranger and composer. The orchestra, he said, was his true instrument. Even at age 13 he sent Count Basie his arrangements.
In 1964 he produced his first hit, the pop song “It’s My Party” by Leslie Gore. Some in the jazz world saw this as a sell out. Jones said,
The underlying motivation for any artist, be it Stravinsky or Miles Davis, is to make the kind of music they want and still have everyone buy it.
In 1974, barely into his 40s, he started bleeding in his brain. But just when people thought he was about to die, on his hospital bed he gave them the finger.
Having almost died, he began to see the leaves on the trees and people’s eyes. He said, “Before that, I was doing a lot of things that I didn’t care to do. Now, I just do exactly what I love.”
That was pretty much true. In the late 1970s he was writing music for film and television. But then he found himself working on the music for “The Wiz”. He did not like it, but later he was glad he did it: it was how he got to work with Michael Jackson. “Off the Wall” (1979) sold 8 million copies, “Thriller” sold 25 million, the most ever.
His dream:
My lifetime project, though, involves putting this whole Afro-American thing together into a single, cohesive musical expression. I’ve been working on it for 20 years, and I may need another 20 to get through. It’s a symphony, it’s an opera, it’s a minstrel review and a big band bash. I don’t know what it is, except there it is, keeping me up, invading my dreams.
His albums “Back on the Block” (1991) and “Q’s Jook Joint” (1995) both have that view of black music.
He has married four times and in the 1990s lived with Nastassja Kinski. Work, not home, was the one constant in his life.
See also:
He is an extremely talented man.
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Yep, love his work esp. his remix of New Order’s Blue Monday(which I didnt even know was him until only a few months ago!)
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Great example. Thanks.
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There are very few producers whose impact on the world of modern popular music has been as profound and important as that of Q. And, through it all, Q has managed to create virtually no enemies, something that is rare in the cut-throat pop music industry. He really is a pillar of success in so many ways.
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Abagond, have you ever done an article on Tupac Shakur? You mention him in several other articles but is he the feature in any?
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No, no Tupac. Not yet at least.
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