Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. (1933-2024) was a unique musical polymath and a multicultural icon of the everchanging zeitgeist of the 20th century. Few people like Quincy Jones have ever existed. But few lifetimes have ever produced someone as gifted, talented, accomplished, compelling and interesting as Quincy Jones.
I don’t hope to encapsulate the entirety of Jones’s enormous contributions here. No blog post, article or obit could ever hope to accomplish all of that. But, here, I just want to talk about Quincy Jones’s work on film. And even that is amazing.
Let’s be fair here. My frame of reference here is jazz. But so many of his soundtracks are so beautiful and worth hearing.
Quincy Jones was always an incredibly prolific musician – even before he went to Hollywood. But when this young man went West, he scored a flurry of films, TV shows, commercials and shorts. And by the time he started scoring films as his regular gig, his name had such drawing power that much of this music found its way to the public.
Indeed, of the incredible 28 film scores Jones recorded between 1965 and 1972, no fewer than 18 soundtracks were issued during this period. Here are just a few.
The Boy in the Tree (1961)
The Boy in the Tree (a.k.a. Pojken i trädet) is Quincy Jones’s first, but all too little-known, film score. The film is something of a European take on Rebel Without a Cause. But that is, perhaps, Hollywood-izing more than necessary here. Directed by Arne Sucksdorff – whose 1949 short film Symphony of a City became the first Swedish film to win an Oscar – The Boy in the Tree starred a young Tomas Bolme and Birgitta Petterson, who starred the year before in Ingmar Berman’s Virgin Spring.
According to Jones, Sucksdorff’s daughter, a fan of Jones’s band, tracked the bandleader down in a Swedish restaurant
Jones provides at least four melodies here that are well worth hearing, particularly the brassy stomper “Main Title” and the haunting “The Boy in the Tree.” “Crucifixion March” (with the fiery Sahib Shihab on flute) and “Fulla’ Fira” are more like typical film cues, but still bear Jones’s signature big-band flair.
Recorded in March 1961, the musicians here include Bengt-Arne Wallin, Benny Bailey, Maffy Falay, Sixten Eriksson (trumpet), Eje Thelin, Jörgen Johansson, Olle Holmqvist, Åke Persson (trombone), Uno Hurtig (tuba), Carl Nyström, Åke Björkman (French horn), Bjarne Nerem, Rolf Blomquist (tenor sax), Arne Domnérus, Rolf Bäckman (alto sax), Sahib Shihab (flute, baritone sax), Yugve Samuelsson (flute), Gunnar Svensson (piano), Rune Gustafsson (guitar), Jimmy Woode (bass), Egil Johansen (drums), Christer Jägerhult (vibes) and Margit Teimar (vocals). (The bold names here are American ex-pats.)
The four songs from the original Swedish EP were included on the 1994 Swedish CD compilation called Quincy’s Home Again (also featuring Swedish sessions Jones waxed in 1953 and 1958). Jones included “The Boy in the Tree” (which fuses the song of that name with the “Main Title” noted above) in the program recorded three months later for Quincy Jones and his Orchestra at Newport ’61 (Mercury).
The Pawnbroker (1965)
The Pawnbroker is Quincy Jones’s first Hollywood film score and the first of five films the composer scored for director Sidney Lumet. The Pawnbroker is a stand out film in many ways. Rod Steiger was justifiably nominated as Best Actor by the Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. And of Sidney Lumet’s many films as a director, The Pawnbroker remains one of his most notable achievements.
Little is made, however, of how remarkable Quincy Jones’s contribution to this film is. Jones was the first Black composer to helm a major Hollywood production. This is no mean feat in mid-century all-white Hollywood. To repeat, this is a major A-list film that had a score by a black man and he continued landing plum assignments, as jazz writer Eliot Tiegel wrote at the time, “without interning among the wards of grade B and C films.”1
And he delivers the goods. Surprisingly, though, this score never received the acclaim it richly deserves.
The orchestral cues are gorgeously scored and include the lush “Main Title” (whose harpsichord suggests what Komeda would do for the lullaby in Rosemary’s Baby), “Theme from Pawnbroker” and the all-too appropriately titled “Death Scene” (with some free-ish jazz improv on the outro).
The jazzy highlights include “Harlem Drive” (with the cleverly beeping horns), the bluesy “The Naked Truth” (a feature for pianist Bobby Scott) and “Rack ’em Up,” highlighting Don Elliott’s “mouth percussion” and Kenny Burrell’s guitar.
Supposedly recorded in February 1965,2 the musicians here include Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), J.J. Johnson (trombone), Jerry Dodgion (alto sax), Oliver Nelson (alto sax, tenor sax), Don Elliott (vibes), Bobby Scott (piano), Kenny Burrell (guitar), Tommy Williams (bass), Elvin Jones (drums), Ed Shaughnessy (percussion).
The film’s vocal theme has lyrics by Jack Lawrence (“Tenderly,” Sarah Vaughan’s first hit, as well as “Dear Old Stockholm” and “I Had a Ball,” from Jones’s big-band days) and a vocal by little-known Marc Allen, likely a Quincy Jones discovery. While Allen is not known for having done much else in music after this, Jones would go on to produce a single of “Nobody Waved Goodbye” for the singer in 1965. The 45 was backed with a cover of Jones’s own “Mirage” theme.
Jones also produced a version of “The Pawnbroker” for Sarah Vaughan (arranged by Benny Carter) as the b-side to her 1965 single release of “Bye Bye” (also produced by Jones). This version of the theme was also included with The Pawnbroker soundtrack on the 1996 CD issue (with The Deadly Affair) and as part of the comprehensive 2017 box set The Cinema of Quincy Jones.
Not included on the film’s soundtrack is Jones’s “Soul Bossa Nova” (from the 1962 album Big Band Bossa Nova), a song that plays in a nightclub scene from the film. “Soul Bossa Nova,” of course, found a substantial second life as the theme to the Austin Powers movies.
Mirage (1965)
For Quincy Jones’s second Hollywood film score, Universal tapped the composer to score veteran director Edward Dmytryk’s superbly entertaining and noirish thriller Mirage. When the film’s producer met Jones face to face, he excused himself from the room, obviously having second thoughts.
“The producer came back in the room,” wrote Jones in his autobiography, “and said, ‘I’ll get back to you.’ Then he called Henry Mancini, an old and close friend, and asked him, ‘Can Quincy Jones handle a score for Gregory Peck and Walter Matthau? This is not a black film.’ Mancini said, ‘C’mon guys! He just did The Pawnbroker and he was a student of Nadia Boulanger. This is the twentieth century – you think the guy’s gonna write the blues for Greg Peck? Hire Him!”3
Needless to say, Jones got the job and Mirage turned out to be one of his most interesting and more notable orchestral scores. Mirage is also one of this writer’s favorite sixties films, with Peck and Matthau in peak form. The terrific-looking film also yields memorable performances from Kevin McCarthy, George Kennedy, Jack Weston, Leif Erikson and a criminally unappreciated and wholly underrated Diane Baker.
While the soundtrack has some terrific moments – including “Boobie Baby,” “Shoot to Kill” and “Kinda Scary” – as well as an elegant, Mancini-esque hit-that-never-was main theme, the score is quite a bit more interesting. To these ears, the soundtrack doesn’t sound like a re-recording (which most were at the time), but the record is missing some of Jones’s most memorable cues from the film (I’m thinking especially of the cue when the lights come back on, early in the film.)
The soundtrack’s wonderfully percussive ninth track, “A Shot in the Park,” is a perfectly-titled tribute to Henry Mancini, who had previously scored the great Pink Panther sequel, A Shot in the Dark, the year before.
Recorded during June 1965, the musicians on Mirage apparently included Herbie Hancock on celeste and Art Davis on bass.4 No other musicians here are known. Both the vocal (sung by a studio choir) and instrumental versions of the title track were issued as a single.
Johnny Mathis also covered the song (arranged by Glenn Osser and conducted by Lincoln Mayorga) on his own 1965 Mercury album The Sweetheart Tree. The Johnny Mathis version of the theme was, curiously, included on the 2001 box set that accompanied Quincy Jones’s autobiography, Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones.
It’s worth noting that Quincy Jones was hired to score the 1969 Gregory Peck Western MacKenna’s Gold, suggesting that the star of that film had no doubt what Quincy Jones could do for one of his films.
The Slender Thread (1966)
Director Sydney Pollack’s feature film debut, the little-known The Slender Thread, is also the first of six films Quincy Jones scored starring Sidney Poitier. The actor and composer – who had known each other for years before – obviously established an easy chemistry working together.
“Dear Quincy, ” notes the album’s back cover, “Many fine talents were assembled in making ‘The Slender Thread’. Supporting them all magnificently was your great musical score. My congratulations and admiration. Your buddy, SIDNEY POITIER.”
Surprisingly, there is no attempt here to craft a pop song out of the material. The producers evidently thought their subject was serious enough – finding a young woman who has taken a lethal dose of barbiturates – that no crossover was likely possible (no single was ever issued from the album). That left Jones free to work his cinematic magic. As a result, The Slender Thread stands as one of the composer’s better early soundtracks.
Highlights include the lovely two-part invention “Threadbare (Main Title Part III),” the superb swinger “Fox’s Sugar” and the subtly percussive “Psychosis.” The slightly out-of-place “Big Sir” seems to riff a little off of “Soul Bossa Nova,” with it’s catchy melody and bouncy groove. Even “Funny Farm” has moments of terrific, if off-kilter, swing. while the lovely ballad “Theme for Inga” could have probably worked well as a pop song if they wanted to try.
Recorded in December 1965, the musicians here include Ray Triscari (trumpet),Bobby Bryant (flugelhorn), Urbie Green (trombone), Red Callender (tuba), Paul Horn (saxophone), Jack Nimitz (saxophone), Joe Mondragon (bass guitar); Dave Grusin (piano, organ), Al Hendrickson (guitar), Victor Feldman (mallots), Larry Bunker (percussions) and Stan Levy (drums). Paul Beaver handled electronic instruments.5
Grusin, of course, went on to score nine of director Sydney Pollack’s films himself, including The Yakuza (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), Tootsie (1982), The Firm (1993) and Random Hearts (1999).
Walk, Don’t Run (1966)
Best known as Cary Grant’s final film, Walk, Don’t Run offers Quincy Jones the opportunity to give his spin on a romantic comedy the way Henry Mancini might have done at the time (Jones recorded a superb tribute album to Henry Mancini in 1964 that also featured Toots Thielemans, who appears here as well).
The main themes, “Happy Feet” and “Stay With Me,” are lovely melodies but a bit too light and easy-ish for their own good. The ethnic musical cliches are probably a bit too broad here (this was comedy circa 1966, after all) but the south-of-the-border “Copy Cat (Wack A Doo)” stands out.
Musicians here include Toots Thielemans (harmonica, whistles), Harry “Sweets” Edison (trumpet), Bud Shank (reeds), Carol Kaye (electric bass), Earl Palmer (drums), Jack Hayes, Leo Shuken (orchestrations) and Dick Hazard (vocal orchestrations). The Don Elliot Voices perform on “Happy Feet” and Tony Clementi performs “Stay With Me.”
In what is likely nothing more than silly contractual shenanigans, Peggy Lee – who wrote the lyrics of “Happy Feet” and “Stay With Me” – also recorded the two songs as a single with Quincy Jones arranging and conducting for her own label at the time, Capitol Records. It’s a shame these versions could not have been included here (Toots Thielemans is heard whistling on Lee’s version of “Happy Feet”).
The Deadly Affair (1967)
This rather monotonous score accompanied one of the most lackluster and (literally and intentionally) muted spy thrillers ever filmed. Quincy Jones’s main theme, an elegant, though off-kilter bossa nova, is helmed by Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto, who had a hit two years earlier with “The Girl from Ipanema.”
Her natural, low-key, slightly flat delivery is the polar opposite of the styles brought to the James Bond franchise by such divas as Shirley Bassey and Nancy Sinatra, who had a hit in 1967 with “You Only Live Twice.”
Even Jones’s unusual main theme is the antithesis of a spy theme of the period, filled with odd changes and chordal voicings. It’s no anthem and it even seems as though it is trying to deconstruct the bossa nova.
The remainder of the soundtrack – as represented here – consists of multiple instrumental variations of the main theme and various cues that bite off bit pieces of the main theme. The most interesting of these is probably the imaginatively-titled “Instrumental Main Theme (1),” not so much for the melody but for the sumptuous way Jones scores the piece.
Recorded in New York City in December 1966, The Deadly Affair identifies only Gilberto on “Who Needs Forever” and pianist Hank Jones on the second and third Main Theme instrumentals. But Astrud Gilberto’s performance of “Who Needs Tomorrow” was beautifully arranged by Don Sebesky and features a tenor sax solo by a remarkably uncredited Zoot Sims.6
Enter Laughing (1967)
This little-remembered film happened to be comedy legend Carl Reiner’s feature film debut as a director (it was also son Rob’s acting debut). The film, based on Carl Reiner’s semi autobiographical novel of the same name, originated as a Broadway production that won Alan Arkin a Tony Award in 1963. Here, the role of Reiner’s stand-in, David Kolowitz, was played by Reni Santoni – in his debut, too – but it didn’t quite make him the star he probably should have been.
Enter Laughing is also Quincy Jones’s second score for a comedy – and it’s a compelling one, to be sure. Jones was apparently encouraged to take his signature flair for big-band writing – particularly notable on the instrumental version of “Enter Laughing,” “Exit Crying” “David Dooze It” and Vienna Wails” – and top it off with a layer of Hollywood glitz and glamour. The result is a remarkably swinging affair.
The film was well-received at the time, but no one remembers it today. Given how much jazz Jones was able to bring to the film’s score, it’s also a bit surprising that it doesn’t get a mention in the composer’s autobiography. Maybe it’s one of those films not even he remembered doing.
Mel Carter, who Quincy Jones discovered in 1961, sings both the main and end title themes, with lyrics by Mack David (“I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So,” “La vie en rose”). Even the great comedienne Carol Burnett fittingly covered “Enter Laughing” (in an Ernie Freeman arrangement) on her 1967 album Carol Burnett Sings. Carl Reiner himself handles the old-timey vocals on the depression-era film themes “Pennies from Heaven” (1936) and “Ha-Cha-Cha” (1934).
Jones’s Enter Laughing soundtrack was paired with Neal Hefti’s equally little-known Synanon soundtrack for a CD issued in 2011 by Kritzerland.
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Perhaps Quincy Jones’s best-known soundtrack to this point, In the Heat of the Night is among the composer’s most interesting and fully-rounded scores. Recorded in April 1967, ITHOTN contemporizes this fish-out-of-water thriller in ways that avoid the cliches or potentially dated stereotypes a less sensitive composer might bring to this film.
Jones uses off-kilter pianos and guitars and a growly flute (courtesy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who appeared on many of Jones’s studio records in the early sixties) to suggest an alien, potentially hostile atmosphere. It’s dark, but never campy.
Cues like “Peep-Freak Patrol Car” and “Cotton Curtain” hint at Jones’s magnificent flair for subtle and ethereal orchestration. If he had wanted, Jones could have easily crafted ITHOTN in to a blues symphony. But it would miss all the elements that make this soundtrack such a satisfying listen.
Of course, there is the classic main title song, a gospel-tinged blues, sung by Ray Charles – a Top 40 hit at the time. Charles himself returns for the sumptuous after-hours piano of “Mama Caleba’s Blues.” Other musicians here include Rashaan Roland Kirk (flute), Ray Brown (bass) and Don Elliott (mouth percussion, voices). Gil Bernal performs “It Sure is Groovy,” Glen Campbell performs “Bowlegged Polly” and Boomer & Travis (a.k.a. Boomer Castleman and Michael Martin Murphey) perform “Foul Owl.”
In the Heat of the Night was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Original Score.
In Cold Blood (1967)
An ominous sense of dread haunts this score, from the main theme and “The Corner,” to the devilishly twisted orchestrations of, say, “Cutter Family Theme” and “Perry’s Theme.” In Cold Blood is a haunting piece of work and a real achievement for composer Quincy Jones.
“To establish the right mood,” Jones related in his autobiography,” I used tons of electronic percussion, cellos and basses, and mixed jazz with 12-tone compositions. The jazz bassists Ray Brown and Andy Simpkins represented the personalities of the two killers, portrayed by Robert Blake and Scott Wilson. The score was ahead of its time, I think, because we lost the Oscar that year to the score for Thoroughly Modern Millie, a comedy.”7
Oddly, though, Jones was not the producers’ first choice as composer. Columbia wanted Elmer Bernstein, but maverick director Richard Brooks insisted on Jones (the two would work together again on 1971’s $ [Dollars]). Even the author of the film’s source material, Truman Capote, was against Quincy Jones scoring the picture – for all the wrong reason. Brooks was steadfast and insisted Jones would score the film. After hearing the result, Capote tearfully capitulated.
The soundtrack’s best-known pieces are “Hangin’ Paper” and “Lonely Bottles,” both great slices of sixties soundtrack jazz. Both were issued as a single at the time. Interestingly, though, both “Seduction” (with its terrifically queasy strings mixed with a twisted lullaby) and “No Witnesses” suggest a sound Herbie Hancock would cultivate in his Mwandishi recordings a couple of years later.
Musicians here include Buddy Childers (trumpet), Frank Rosolino (trombone), Dave Grusin (clavinet), Gene Cipriano, Bud Shank, William Green (woodwinds), Howard Roberts (guitar), Ray Brown, Andy Simpkins (bass), Carol Kaye (electric bass); Shelly Manne, Earl Palmer (drums) and Don Elliott (mouth percussion), Emil Richards (percussion, bottles). Gil Bernal performs the lovely “Niña.”
In Cold Blood, the score Quincy Jones was most proud of, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score. Also of note here are the two sets of eyes pictured on the soundtrack album’s cover (which matches the film poster): they are not those of the actors playing the killers, but rather the real killers themselves.
The Split (1968)
This incredible score gives listeners their first – yes, the first – insight in to the amazing way Quincy Jones worked in film. The Split was a 1968 film that Jones scored, but at the time the composer himself did not feel there was enough music to merit a soundtrack album. Apparently, this even took MGM producer Jesse Kaye by surprise.
Forty-one years later, the full score of The Split – all sixty minutes of it – made its first-ever appearance, courtesy of the great archivist, historian, writer and producer Lukas Kendall and his much-revered Film Score Monthly (FSM) label. To this day, The Split is one of the only Quincy Jones scores released in its entirety (Quartet issued an “expanded” edition of The Italian Job in 2019). And what a score it is.
The Split is a sequel of sorts to the previous year’s Point Blank, another MGM film based on the Parker novels of Richard Stark, a pen name for Donald E. Westlake. In the Parker role, named McClain here, is former NFL great Jim Brown, in his first leading role. (Steve McQueen was apparently offered the role, but declined it to do Bullitt instead.) A great cast, including Diahann Carroll, Julie Harris, Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Sutherland and Jack Klugman, rounds out the film.
Quincy Jones’s score, particularly as it is presented here, is a revelation. There is something about the film’s urban setting that brought out the composer’s, well, if not his better angels, then his particular genius for capturing – or suggesting – the popular zeitgeist. Who would have guessed then that Quincy Jones would do this several more times later in his career?
“The Split,” as FSM so aptly put it, “is a pulsating, funky and tuneful score with a riveting array of jazz and modernist effects.” It is an exciting, compelling and forward-looking score, one that only a few composers were doing at the time.
Years later, Jones would speak about his frustration – and exhaustion – with his work in film and TV. By the early seventies, “I’d done all I could do in the medium anyway,” Jones said.8 “I felt that Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel [who had scored the previous Point Blank], Benny Carter, and Duke Ellington were all pioneers of jazz-influenced film sores. I’d tried to bring the sensibility of modern R&B into scoring.”
The Split is the first – or maybe the next – in a number of such efforts in this direction to prove that this guy always knew where he was headed.
Musicians here include Buddy Childers, Ray Triscari, Graham Young, Uan Rasey (trumpet), Lew McCreary, Frank Rosolino,
Dick Noel, Ken Shroyer, Don Waldrop (trombone), John Cave, Jim Decker, William Hinshaw, Vince DeRosa, Art Maebe (French horn); Tommy Johnson (tuba), Bud Shank, Gene Cipriano, Harry Klee, Ethmer Roten (woodwinds), Artie Kane, Michael Lang (piano), Billy Preston, Paul Beaver (organ); Al Hendrickson, Tommy Tedesco, Dennis Budimir, Bob Bain (guitar), Harry Bluestone (violin), Ray Brown, Joe Mondragon, Max Bennett (bass), Carol Kaye (electric bass), Shelly Manne, Larry Bunker, Emil Richards, Frank Carlson, Gene Estes, Ralph Collier, Jerry Williams, Paul Humphrey (percussion).
Arthur Prysock – who was on Verve Records at the time and had recorded an album with Count Basie in 1966 – had recorded early versions of the main and end titles (both as “The Split”). But, for some reason, he was replaced on the film’s soundtrack by Billy Preston, who sang the main title and “It’s Just a Game, Love.” The actual film used an instrumental version of “The Split” for the end title.
In 1968, MGM issued a single of “The Split” backed with “It’s Just a Game, Love” under Billy Preston’s name while FSM included the Arthur Prysock tracks as bonuses on the 2009 CD of The Split.
“The Split” was also covered by Lou Rawls (arranged by H.B. Barnum) and Wilton Felder (of the Jazz Crusaders) while “It’s Just a Game, Love” was covered by The Friends of Distinction, H.B. Barnum (!) and Peaches & Herb (!), in an arrangement by Brad Baker (!).
Incidentally, the line “it’s just a game, love” is repeated by Pierce Brosnan to Renee Russo in the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, the original which starred Steve McQueen.
For Love of Ivy (1968)
Sidney Poitier himself conceived the story of this little-known romantic comedy with jazz singer Abbey Lincoln in the title role as Ivy. Quincy Jones was Poitier’s first choice as composer. After scoring two dark movies – In the Heat of the Night and In Cold Blood – Jones jumped at the chance to work on something lighter.
It’s a change of pace for Jones in another way, too. The soundtrack, which was recorded in late March (and maybe April, too) 1968, doesn’t flesh out film cues as much as provide “source music,” the diegetic sounds that the characters in the film can hear on radios or their record players. These are full songs meant to be heard in snippets throughout the movie.
The title song, co-written by Jones and Bob Russell, gets two orchestral readings on side one. Both Jones and Russell had been nominated for an Academy Award the year before for “The Eyes of Love,” from the 1967 film Banning (a song that wouldn’t appear on record until Jones’s re-recording of it on the 1973 album You’ve Got It Bad Girl).
Shirley Horn provides a vocal version of “Ivy” as the End Title theme on side two (it was also issued as a single). It’s also worth noting that Ms. Horn performed “If You Want Love” and “The Spell You Spin (The Web You Weave)” from Jones’s 1968 soundtrack to A Dandy in Aspic. Like “Eyes,” “For Love of Ivy” was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
The remainder of the soundtrack’s first side is a superb set of small-group jazz instrumentals, no doubt helmed by the great Grady Tate on drums. The record’s second side boasts “Messy But Good,” a cool blues featuring the always welcome guitar of B.B. King.
King returns on vocals for two songs – “You Put It On Me” and “The B.B. Jones” – with lyrics by the memoirist, essayist, poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou (although “The B.B. Jones” is not terribly worthy of that distinguished résumé). These are hardly highlights, but the names command attention.
A long-forgotten pop rock act, Cashman, Pistilli & West – recently signed to the label For Love of Ivy appears on, ABC Records – provide the lyrics and perform “My Side of the Sky” and “Don’t You Believe It.” A different recording of “My Side of the Sky,” arranged by Herb Bronstein, was issued as a promotional single but never found an official release.
The Italian Job (1969)
I’ve never been a huge fan of this film – or its soundtrack. The music is derivative – give me Amyl Nitrate’s “Rule Britannia” from the 1977 film Jubilee any day – and the comic touches may appeal to certain tastes, but not to mine. The score, like the film, is all over the place, which is probably why both are considered cult favorites.
Here, Quincy Jones hooks up with frequent James Bond wordsmith Don Black and From Russia With Love – as well as John Barry’s Born Free – crooner Matt Monro on the positively dreary “On Days Like These” (delivered instrumentally as a lovely bossa nova, featuring the Bud Shank-like Pete King on alto sax).
The soundtrack’s highlights include the British hoedown “It’s Caper Time” (oddly fusing harpsichord, harmonica and clarinet – among other things), the Baroque “Greensleeves and All That Jazz” and the lounge-y “Something’s Cookin’.” “It’s Caper Time” and “Getta Bloomin’ Move On (The Self Preservation Society)” are voiced by “The Italian Job,” a way of conveying the voices are those of the cast, including the film’s star, Michael Caine.
Musicians here include Pete King (alto sax), Tubby Hayes (tenor sax) and Duffy Power (harmonica).
The Lost Man (1969)
The Lost Man is the sole directorial credit for writer and producer Robert Alan Aurthur, who had also written and produced Sidney Poitier and Quincy Jones’s previous collaboration, For Love of Ivy (1969). This little-known film also served as the one where Poitier met actress Joanna Shimkus, who would become his wife several years later.
By this point in Jones’s Hollywood tenure, the composer had veered from orchestral and jazz-inflected scores to those with more contemporaneous – some might say “urban” – R&B and funk grooves. (The record’s “Need to Be Needed,” though, is classic old-school Hollywood.) This was true of Jones’s work in TV at the time on “The Bill Cosby Show” (1969) and, later, on “Sanford and Son” (1972) as well as his own albums of the period, too.
“For the main title of The Lost Man,” Jones told Stéphane Lerouge in the notes to The Cinema of Quincy Jones, “I combined two layers and put one over the over [stet: other] in a strange way: a nursery rhyme with a children’s choir singing and whistling, and a dark, tight orchestra that’s almost Stravinsky-like. Everything is built around the to-and-fro between the flavor of the children’s voices, their innocence, and the feeling of brooding drama.”
The Main Title theme is, indeed, an arresting piece of work. It is haunting and chill-inducing all at once. There is no doubt that this layered approach Jones describes inspired an untold number of film scores years later, particularly those in the psychological and horror genres.
The soundtrack’s other instrumentals (“Slum Creeper,” “Main Squeeze” and “Up Against the Wall”) continue with an alluring menace that speaks to just how brilliant an orchestrator Jones was – from the big band days right up through the later Top 40 successes.
The lyrics for the soundtrack’s vocal songs (except the gospel tune “He’ll Wash You Whiter Than Snow”9) were written by Dick Cooper and Ernie Shelby, the production team at the time behind the vocal group The Mirettes – a trio of singers formerly in The Ikettes (a.k.a. the Ike and Tina Turner Revue) – nominally led by Venetta Fields. The Mirettes are featured here, too, and on the best of these – “Sweet Soul Sister” and “Rap, Run it On Down” – the little-known Nate Turner takes the lead.
“He Says He Loves Me” is performed by Ernestine Anderson – the jazz vocalist whose 1962 single “After the Lights Go Down Low” was produced by Jones – and the Pree Sisters, yet another upstart here that never really clicked – although they had a couple of unsuccessful singles issued on Capitol in 1972.
The wondrous and seemingly-improvised “End Title” features the Chicago-based soul and gospel singer Geraldine Jones – no known relation to Quincy – who also sang the theme to the hardly-known Top of the Heap, a 1972 film that was jazz trombonist and composer J.J. Johnson’s second film score (the first, Man and Boy, was supervised by Quincy Jones) – bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Arthur Adams.
Musicians here likely include Bud Shank (reeds), Arthur Adams (guitar), Ray Brown (bass) Carol Kaye (electric bass) and Emil Richards (percussion).
Two singles were released from the soundtrack: “The Lost Man (Main Title)” b/w “Main Squeeze” (credited to Quincy Jones) and “Sweet Soul Sister” b/w “Rap, Run it on Down” (credited to Nate Turner and The Mirettes). Neither of these ever hit. But, daring and unique as it was at the time, The Lost Man was also remarkably nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Original Score for a Motion Picture or a Television Show.
They Call Me Mister Tibbs (1970)
They Call Me Mister Tibbs – or They Call Me MISTER Tibbs – is a sequel of sorts to the earlier In the Heat of the Night (1967). Star Sidney Poitier returns as Detective Virgil Tibbs, this time as a fish-presumably-in-his-own-pond family man, heading up a murder mystery set in San Francisco – despite being a single cop out of Philadelphia in Heat.
Directed by journeyman Gordon Douglas (1907-93), Tibbs follows three detective films the director nicely helmed for Frank Sinatra. Douglas had also directed films with scores by such jazz veterans as Neal Hefti (Harlow), Lalo Schifrin (Way…Way Out) and Oliver Nelson (Skullduggery) as well as films with jazzy scores by Jerry Goldsmith (In Like Flint, The Detective).
Like Poitier, Quincy Jones returns to Tibbs from the 1967 film. But whereas the actor plays the same role as before (albeit in a new setting), the composer can hardly replay or regurgitate the roiling tension that pervaded the earlier score.
“Tibbs is a sequel as far as the story is concerned,” Quincy Jones told DownBeat at the time. “But not the music. Heat was set in a southern locale; Tibbs is a San Francisco detective; virile, gentlemanly, but ballsy.”10 In other words, Jones was required to come up with more of a contemporary and recognizably urban, yet urbane, score for Tibbs than the out-of-time and out-of-place sounds he crafted for Heat.
The masterful “Call Me Mister Tibbs (Main Title)” kicks off the soundtrack in high style. It is a superb slice of propulsive soundtrack funk, powered by a rollicking bassline and Blaxploitation guitar. The exciting melody is carried by electric harpsichord and bass flutes, punctuated by punchy brass. A funky organ solos over the groove. The soundtrack also offers a shorter version of the “Main Title” – for some reason – as well as a brief snippet of the tune (in a different recording) for the End Title.
Other highlights include “Blues for Mister Tibbs,” a slower version of the main theme, played out on Fender Rhodes, organ and guitar; “Soul Flower,” which was nominated for a Grammy Award; and the fusion jazz ballad “Black Cherry.” The fuzz-rock source cue “Fat Poppadaddy” suggests a cross between Herbie Hancock’s “Fat Albert” music and Dave Grusin’s “Maude” theme and comes across as a blueprint for Jones’s own “Sanford and Son” theme several years later.
Notably, though, Tibbs is, like In Cold Blood, one of the few Quincy Jones soundtracks without a vocal track intended to garner radio airplay.
While critic Harvey Siders missed the presence of Roland Kirk from the earlier soundtrack (Kirk’s jazzy flute jabs on Heat gave a foreboding sense of fear and loathing throughout), he describes the Tibbs soundtrack as containing “an irresistible drive, consisting of biting phrases that swing of their own volition but with an ever-present underpinning that incorporates jazz, sensuous soul, and the most compatible merger of rock and R&B.”11
Few musicians have been revealed as part of the soundtrack recording, but those who are known include Chuck Findley (trumpet), Carol Kaye (electric bass) and Emil Richards (percussion). Even more surprisingly, They Call Me Mister Tibbs has only been issued on CD once, paired with the In the Heat of the Night soundtrack by Rykodisc in 1995 – suggesting that “Call Me Mister Tibbs (Main Title)” is the only notable track here. It isn’t.
Due to a “scheduling conflict,” Quincy Jones was apparently unable to work on the third and final Virgil Tibbs film, The Organization (1971) – also with Sidney Poitier. The producers immediately turned to fellow former jazz guy Gil Mellé, who had recently found great success with his electronic score for Robert Wise’s The Andromeda Strain (1971). Mellé’s Tibbs score – first issued by Intrada in 2010 – is less Quincy Jones and more of an intriguing mix of Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew and Lalo Schifrin.
$ (Dollars) (1971)
The second of two films Quincy Jones scored for director Richard Brooks – In Cold Blood (1967) being the first – $ is an entirely different film…and score. This one, like, say, The Pink Panther (1963), is a comedy heist film for, in this case, a different generation. While Henry Mancini gave an elegant jazz score to The Pink Panther, Jones went all in on R&B/funk for $. Both scores, though, balance the serious music with obviously comic cues.
$ is one of Quincy Jones’s strongest late-period scores. The composer weaves elements of R&B, classical and atonal music in a way that works perfectly for a movie like this (sample the humorously titled “Brooks’ 50¢ Tour [Main Title Collage],” a ten-minute medley of composer Jones’s score for director Brooks’s film).
Highlights include “Money Runner,” the instrumental version of “Money Is”; the sinewy “Candy Man” (whose contrabass motif is picked up again in “Kitty With the Bet Frame”); “Snow Creatures,” which has been heavily sampled by numerous hip hop artists, including Gang Starr and Common; “Rubber Ducky”; and “Passin’ the Buck,” a welcome feature for Eric Gale’s guitar.
Don Elliott provides voices throughout the score. Interestingly, Elliott – whose 1956 album A Musical Offering (with Elliot on mellophone and vibes) was arranged by Quincy Jones – is credited in the film as “the human instrument.”.
Little Richard is perfectly cast for the proto-rap song and should-have-been-a-hit “Money Is” and, especially, the Blaxploitation shouter “Do It – To It,” both with music and clever lyrics credited to Quincy Jones. Roberta Flack, whose “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” factored heavily in another 1971 film, Play Misty For Me, sings the cheery happy-ending finish, “When You’re Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You) (End Title).”
Recorded over five sessions between October 13 and November 5, 1971, the musicians here include Jerome Richardson (woodwinds), Billy Preston, Artie Kane, Clare Fischer, Michael Lang, Paul Beaver (keyboards), Eric Gale, Arthur Adams, David T. Walker, Elek Bacsik (guitar), Elliott Fischer (electric violin), Doug Kershaw (the Cajun violin on “Redeye Runnin’ Train”), Ray Brown (bass), Chuck Rainey (electric bass), Bill Plummer (electric bass, sitar), Tommy Johnson (tuba). Paul Humphrey, Ronnie Tutt (drums) and Bobbye Hall Porter, Milt Holland, Victor Feldman, Larry Bunker, Gene Estes (percussion).
“Money Runner” was nominated in 1972 for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental by Arranger, Composer, Orchestra, losing to “The French Connection” by fellow jazzer Don Ellis.
It’s fair to say that Jones’s $ score, particularly “Money Runner” and “Candy Man,” might have had some influence over the 1973 hit “For the Love of Money.” Bassist Anthony Jackson, who crafted the memorably famous bassline heard in The O’Jays hit, would later lend a variation of it to Jones’s own “Poppy Girls” from the 1978 film of The Wiz.
The original $ soundtrack appeared on Frank Sinatra’s Reprise label and was released only once on CD, in France in 2001.
The Hot Rock (1972)
This is a film with notable pedigree. The Hot Rock is a comic caper starring Robert Redford and George Segal, based on a novel by Donald E. Westlake (who also wrote the source novel that resulted in The Split, scored by Quincy Jones), with a script by William Goldman (who had previously written the screenplay for Redford’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and directed by Peter Yates (Bullitt, The Friends of Eddie Coyle – each with memorably jazzy scores by, respectively, Lalo Schifrin and Dave Grusin).
Quincy Jones adds to the film’s pedigree with one of his most interesting and jazziest scores. Jazz listeners, in particular, were likely thrilled to recognize the familiar sounds of Gerry Mulligan, Clark Terry, Jerome Richardson and Grady Tate mixing it up with Jones’s regular cadre of Hollywood studio musicians – including Clare Fischer, Victor Feldman and bassists Carol Kaye, Chuck Rainey and Ray Brown.
Indeed, Jones himself was so impressed with the results that he insisted the musicians get on-screen credit for their contributions – something that was highly unusual for a Hollywood film of the day. They are also credited on the soundtrack LP, which was also hardly ever done at the time.
There is a good deal more improvisation heard here than in your typical Hollywood score, reminding this listener of many of Ennio Morricone’s giallo scores of the period – particularly the exquisite Cold Eyes of Fear (Gli occhi freddi della paura – 1971). Jones’s cues here are built on a percussive foundation and hypnotic bass lines that drive the soloists to their best. And those that stand out most – “Talking Drums,” “Sahara Stone” and “Slam City” in particular – recall the African sensibilities Jones employed on his magnificent “Gula Matari” from the 1971 album of the same name.
Recorded in December 1971, the notable musicians here include Clark Terry (trumpet), Frank Rosolino (trombone), Jerome Richardson (woodwinds), Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax), Mike Melvoin, Clare Fischer (keyboards), Victor Feldman (vibes), Tommy Tedesco, Dennis Budimir (guitar), Chuck Rainey, Carol Kaye (electric bass), Ray Brown (bass), Grady Tate, Milt Holland (drums), Emil Richards, Bobbye Porter Hall (percussion),
“Listen to the Melody” and “When You Believe” are sung by Tata Vega (who returned for several songs on the 1984 score for The Color Purple) while The Don Elliott Voices factor on “Hot Rock Theme.” “Listen to the Melody” was also issued as a single backed with a song called “What Did He Say” by the Quincy Jones Orchestra – a title the single indicates comes from The Hot Rock LP, but no such title appears on the record.
Issued on the short-lived Prophesy label – distributed by Atlantic at the time – which also featured Tata Vega’s then-band Pollution, The Hot Rock has surprisingly never found life on CD. But the film was issued in 2018 on a limited-edition Blu Ray disc by Twilight Time with an isolated music track.
Endnotes:
- Tiegel, Eliot. “Quincy at the Movies,” Billboard, December 18, 1965. 26. ↩︎
- I have always wondered about this date. While the film had its U.S. debut in April 1965, two months after the alleged soundtrack recording, The Pawnbroker actually had its premiere in June 1964 at the Berlin International Film Festival – seven months before the soundtrack is said to have been recorded. Perhaps the soundtrack was recorded in February of 1964 and not 1965. This would align with Jones’s own assertion that he waited nearly two years for his next film assignment. ↩︎
- Jones, Quincy. Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones (New York: Doubleday, 2001). ↩︎
- Sources for musicians identified here include Tom Lord’s The Jazz Discography (Version 21.0) and David Meeker’s Jazz on the Screen: A Jazz and Blues Filmography (2019). Neither source is complete – nor entirely accurate – but they are the best sources available at this point. ↩︎
- Tiegel, op. cit. 26. ↩︎
- Identified by Stéphane Lerouge in the credits to The Cinema of Quincy Jones (Decca, 2016). David Meeker, in Jazz on the Screen, indicates – incorrectly, I think – that saxophonist Tubby Hayes participates on The Deadly Affair. ↩︎
- Jones, op. cit. 197. ↩︎
- Jones, op. cit. 211. ↩︎
- The gospel singer and songwriter Cora Martin (1927-2005) is credited as the writer of “He’ll Wash You Whiter Than Snow” (also known without the contraction). Adopted early in life by the gospel singer Sallie Martin, the young Cora eventually joined the Sallie Martin Singers, where this song probably originated. The song’s title is likely based on a passage from one of the Bible’s Psalms. Many gospel choirs have performed “Snow,” but the best-known recordings are by gospel singer Alex Bradford and a teenaged Aretha Franklin – both from the fifties. It’s worth noting that Quincy Jones first met Aretha Franklin at this stage in her life and it’s likely that Jones recalled her performance of this song and chose to include it here. ↩︎
- Siders, Harvey. “Quincy’s Got a Brand New (Old) Bag,” DownBeat, November 26, 1970. 31. ↩︎
- Siders, 1970. ↩︎