Quincy Delight Jones, “Musical titan” (CNN) and “Giant of American Music” (New York Times), who was “[w]idely considered one of the most influential forces in modern American music” (Los Angeles Times), passed away on November 3, 2024. He was 91.
In more than a half century, Quincy Jones didn’t participate in music. He commanded it: in genres that ranged from big band, jazz and fusion, to soundtracks, R&B and pop – from the 50s through at least the new millennium. He was the superlative musician, composer, arranger, producer, musical visionary: the one that could do it all.
I used to think his artistry was impossible, but I have come to think that Quincy Jones is one of the most amazing artists of 20th Century music.
The music Quincy Jones made that I love the most likely reflects my age. As a late-period Boomer, the Big Band stuff – much of which I discovered later in life, and which is well worth appreciating on its own – predates my arrival on Earth. But my first awareness of Quincy Jones came about from his fantastic hits “Stuff Like That” (1978) and the Grammy Award-winning “Ai No Corrida” (1981) – stuff like that that I love to this day.
I also knew of him from his productions of the Brothers Johnson (“Strawberry Letter 23”), George Benson (“Give Me the Night”) and, of course, Michael Jackson. Only later did I hear much of what constitutes the great music that compromises this list. Suffice it to say, anything with Quincy Jones’s name on it is well worth listening to.
“Stockholm Sweetin'” – Quincy Jones from This Is How I Feel About Jazz (1957): “Stockholm Sweetin'” was originally written in 1953 – when Quincy Jones was only 20 years old! – for Clifford Brown and Art Farmer with the Swedish All Stars. This version features solos by a returning Art Farmer on trumpet, Phil Woods on alto sax, Hank Jones on piano and, in tribute, a transcription of Clifford Brown’s solo on the original version, played by unison trombones for 32 bars. “I was trying, Jones said at the time, “for a tight, small group feeling with a large orchestra sound.” Mission accomplished.
“The Cylinder” – Milt Jackson from The Ballad Artistry of Milt Jackson (Atlantic – 1960). Simply, those elegant strings give me goose bumps every time.
“Blues Bittersweet” – Count Basie from String Along With Basie (Roulette – 1960). Quincy Jones wrote “Blues Bittersweet” for Count Basie. And not only do you get Jones’s singular way with a horn section but that dreamy way of his with strings. Blues + Soul + An Orchestra = Quincy Jones.
“One Mint Julep” – Ray Charles from Genius + Soul = Jazz (Impulse – 1961). Quincy Jones and Ray Charles were childhood friends. There is a mutual love in this performance. It swings as hard as it rocks.
“Soul Bossa Nova” – Quincy Jones from Big Band Bossa Nova (Mercury – 1962). I tracked down BBBM for the presence of fellow composer/arranger Lalo Schifrin on piano here. Turns out the album is probably one of Q’s very best. And kudos to Mike Myers and the Austin Powers franchise for turning “Soul Bossa Nova” into Quincy Jones’s best-known songs.
“Kansas City Wrinkles” – Count Basie from L’il ‘Ol Groovemaker…BASIE! (1963). A sinewy slow blues that shows Quincy Jones’s deft handling of horn phrasing and counterpoint. The leader opens up on a nostalgic note, playing tack piano. Buddy Catlett solos on bass, followed by Marshall Royal on clarinet, Snooky Young on muted trumpet and Henry Coker on trombone. Entrancing.
Quincy Jones Explores the Music of Henry Mancini (1964). Henry Mancini was one of the finest – and most popular – composers and orchestrators of his generation. Here, Quincy Jones devotes a whole album to Mancini’s well-known and much-loved music, but in a style that is very much his own. One misses Q’s originals here, but this whole album is one of the finest records Quincy Jones ever waxed. Little wonder that Mancini himself became one of Quincy Jones’s biggest champions in Hollywood. Hear it all here.
“Fly Me to the Moon” – Frank Sinatra / Count Basie And His Orchestra from It Might As Well Be Spring (1964). “I’d been inspired,” wrote Quincy Jones in his autobiography about the recording of his 1969 album Walking in Space, “by a chance meeting with Buzz Aldrin, one of the first astronauts on the moon, who told me that while he was up in space, he’d played the recording of my arrangement of Frank Sinatra cookin’ on ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ with the Count Basie Band. It was a kick to have arranged the first song played in outer space.” Outta sight, too.
“Killer Joe” – Quincy Jones from Walking in Space (1969). This nearly flawless record was a comeback of sorts, appearing four years after Quincy Jones left the East Coast for Hollywood. Produced by Creed Taylor, Walking in Space is a superb showcase for Quincy Jones’s musical intuition and sensibilities and a forum for some of his favorite New York musicians. Q made a standard out of Benny Golson’s “Killer Joe,” with its cool and classy demeanor. Soloists include Hubert Laws on flute and Freddie Hubbard on muted trumpet. A classic.
“Walking in Space” – Quincy Jones from Walking in Space (1969). In one of two pieces Quincy Jones features on Walking in Space from the Broadway production of Hair, real magic is made out of this hippie elegy. Soloists include Hubert Laws on flute (twice), Jimmy Cleveland on trombone, Bob James on electric piano, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Roland Kirk on three horns (!), Eric Gale on guitar and, later Ray Brown, Grady Tate and Laws, again.
“Gula Matari” – Quincy Jones from Gula Matari (1970). The African-inflected “Gula Matari” is a magisterial jazz concerto. Whether that was Jones’s intention or not (and I suspect it may well have been), it makes for a commanding, mesmerizing and superior performance. Soloists include Hubert Laws on flute, Eric Gale on guitar, Milt Jackson on vibes, Toots Thielmans on harmonica, Jerome Richardson on soprano sax and Major Holley on scat vocals. Also on board here are Don Elliott on bass marimba, both Richard Davis and Ron Carter on bass and, the superb Grady Tate on drums. Keyboards are manned by Herbie Hancock, Bob James and/or Bobby Scott.
“Call Me Mister Tibbs (Main Title)” – Quincy Jones from They Call Me Mister Tibbs (1970). This sequel to In the Heat of the Night, which took place in the American South, takes Sidney Poitier’s Mister Tibbs to San Francisco, requiring Quincy Jones to come up with a more contemporary urban music (the year before Lalo Schifrin did the same thing for Dirty Harry). The film’s main theme, heard here, is an extraordinary piece of electric soundtrack funk.
“‘Call Me Mister Tibbs (Main Title)’, wrote Film Score Monthly’s Doug Adams in his liner notes for the 1997 CD compilation of these two Mister Tibbs soundtracks, “is a mysterious collection of brassy outbursts, greasy electric piano licks, trilling woodwinds [electronic bass flutes], and vigorous R&B power brass.”
It’s a brilliant mix that highlights not only Jones’s ability to write a catchy tune but score it in a compelling, unique way.
In a later post, I hope to cover more of Quincy Jones’s film music. There is much to consider and much that is worthwhile.
“Cast Your Fate to the Wind” – Quincy Jones from Smackwater Jack (1971). Pianist Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” was originally a B-side to a 1962 single until a DJ flipped the record over and a hit was born. This one song helped Guaraldi land the job of scoring A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) – which yielded the immortal Peanuts theme “Linus and Lucy” – and many other Peanuts specials.
Quincy Jones had previously waxed “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” in 1963 on the exceptionally underrated Quincy Jones Plays Hip Hits (“Big band arrangements of today’s soulful jazz hits”). There, Q cast the song as though it was the George Shearing Quintet with a big band, with Bobby Scott – whose “A Taste of Honey” is also covered on Hip Hits – soloing on piano.
Here, Quincy Jones returns to the song, but this time it’s more of a funky blues. The easy-ish horns carry the lyrical melody but the solos rock this one. Eric Gale is heard first on guitar, then Scott returns for a solo that is nothing like what he did in 1963. This one is a shredder, if you can do that on a piano in 1971 (at which point Scott wanted to be known more as a vocalist).
Marvin Stamm winds things down on flugelhorn with a Fender Rhodes taking us dreamily out to sea. The Rhodes could be either Bob James or Joe Sample, though my money is on BJ. Chuck Rainey adds his signature bass pops but Ray Brown may well be here, too.
“Summer in the City” – Quincy Jones from You’ve Got It Bad Girl (1973). “Summer in the City” was a hit for The Lovin’ Spoonful in 1966. Here, Quincy Jones revives it as a slick fusion number that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on one his early 70s soundtracks.
This ingenious version of “Summer” is more “Summertime” cool than rock heatwave and features Dave Grusin on Fender Rhodes, Valerie Simpson on vocals and the great French organist Eddy Louiss (here as “Eddie Louis”). Chuck Rainey is certainly on bass but other musicians are not identified.
Jones won a Grammy Award for “Summer in the City” and the song has been sampled by many hip hop artists, including LL Cool J, Erykah Badu and Massive Attack.
“‘Sanford & Son Theme’ – NBC-TV (The Streetbeater)” – Quincy Jones from You’ve Got It Bad Girl (1973). This is the memorable theme to the hit Redd Foxx sitcom that aired on NBC from 1972 though 1978. The show was devised by Norman Lear as a counterpoint to his other popular sitcom, “All in the Family,” on CBS.
Quincy Jones came up with an irresistible melody that suggests both the comedy of the show and the social struggles the characters endure. With a mix of electric keyboards and a funky bass (probably helmed by Carol Kaye), “The Streetbeater” gets a uniquely “Q sound” that is built off of Ernie Watts’s electric sax, Phil Woods’s alto sax and Tom Morgan’s bass harmonica – bass harmonica!
Surprisingly, the song never charted. But the “Sanford & Son” theme is in the top ten of Rolling Stone‘s most memorable TV themes, as well it should be.
“Tell Me A Bedtime Story” – Quincy Jones from Sounds…And Stuff Like That!! (1978). Herbie Hancock’s “Tell Me A Bedtime Story” first appeared on his 1969 album Fat Albert Rotunda, a sort of soundtrack to the animated NBC-TV special “Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert.” The ballad stands out on the otherwise funky set, much as it does here.
Quincy Jones invited Hancock to reinterpret his song for Sounds…And Stuff Like That!! Whereas horns carried the melody on the original, Herbie’s Fender Rhodes tells this particular story – with a little help from Hubert Laws on flute.
But what makes this version so much more compelling is that the solo portion of the song is handed over to “a Herbie Hancock solo” transcribed for violin (played by Harry Lookofsky). The idea was likely the result of letting Herbie improvise as he normally would, then recruiting Sy Johnson to transcribe the solo for Lookofsky to overdub his part. The result is magnificent and makes this not only one of Herbie’s best but Q’s as well.
“Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” – Michael Jackson from Off The Wall (1979). When this song first appeared in July 1979, disco was dying an ignoble death and little worthwhile was coming out (although Patrick Hernandez’s brilliant “Born to Be Alive” was released earlier in the year). But in a year that found Earth, Wind & Fire’s silly “Boogie Wonderland” topping the charts, no one expected this. Especially from the former leader of the Jackson 5.
“Don’t Stop” is not only an ingeniously clever song – written by Jackson himself, with an-always rousing bridge devised by an uncredited Greg Phillinganes – it is an exceptionally well-crafted one. Nothing this funky ever sounded so elegant.
Jones worked extensively with Jackson to craft this simple, infectious tune into a sonic wonder that has aged well and well beyond mere disco. Phillinganes arranged the rhythm (Louis Johnson is on bass), Jerry Hey arranged the horns (played by the studio collective Seawind) and Ben Wright arranged the strings.
Jackson himself arranged the vocals and percussion, which included brother Randy and an uncredited Sheila E. The singer also debuts a falsetto that is as sweet as it as sexy, with a number signature vocal tropes that would develop over time. Q brings it all together perfectly. It gives me goose bumps every time.
“Stomp” – The Brothers Johnson (1980) from Light Up The Night (1980). For some reason, “Stomp” never crossed my path until many years after the fact. But, wow, did it knock me out. In retrospect, this song seems like the perfect launch pad for the 1980s: a transition from R&B and disco to rap and hip-hop.
Light Up The Night was the fourth and final album Quincy Jones produced for the Brothers Johnson. But it yielded this phenomenal swinger.
Quincy Jones revisited “Stomp” for his 1995 disc Q’s Jook Joint. This hip-hop version features rappers Melle Mel, Coolio, Yo Yo, Shaquille O’Neal (!), vocalists Chaka Khan and Charlie Wilson and an all-too anonymous keyboard solo from Herbie Hancock.
Remarkably, a great number of the musicians from the Brothers Johnson version returned for this version, including Greg Phillinganes (synthesizer), “Stomp” co-writer Rod Temperton (keyboards), John Robinson (drums), Jerry Hey and Gary Grant (trumpet)and Larry Williams and Kim Hutchcroft (saxes).
“Oh No, Margarita” – Patti Austin from Every Home Should Have One (1981). While this Patti Austin-Michael Boddicker original might seem informed by “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” “Oh No, Margarita” goes its own way soon enough with a style and flair that make it well worth hearing. This is what Quincy Jones does best: make great talents sound amazing.
While “Baby, Come To Me” was the album’s hit, this was always the record’s highlight. And Every Home Should Have One is pretty much all top-shelf material. I have always savored Ernie Watts’s terrific solo here and Austin’s skat vocal could have gone on for at least one or two more choruses to my delight. Still gives me chills.
“State of Independence” – Donna Summer (1982) from Donna Summer (1982). Q was drafted by David Geffen to produce the former disco diva Donna Summer’s eponymous 1982 album. Apparently, the production wasn’t all smooth sailing: Jones seemingly struggled with Summer’s limitations. But Summer never sounded better – or more accomplished – than she does here. And the album yielded a top ten hit in the Grammy-nominated “Love is in Control” (co-written by Jones) and a Grammy nomination for “Protection,” a song written for the singer by Bruce Springsteen.
The album’s highlight, though, is the cover of the 1981 Jon and Vangelis single “State of Independence.” It’s a deft choice, one likely made by Q himself. Here, he turns the song in to an anthem and Summer delivers the goods. Later, Jones, in his autobiography, credited this song for his getting the job to produce and coordinate “We are the World” (1985).
“I’d produced an album with Donna Summer,” Jones wrote, “and asked about a third of the same people [recruited to sing as USA for Africa] to come in and sing a sixteen-bar choir segment in ‘State of Independence.’ They accepted graciously and did it.” Or, to paraphrase Summer herself: When Quincy calls, they come.
Take a look at who is actually in the “State of Independence” choir: Dara Bernard (a back-up vocalist from Summer’s band), Dyan Cannon (star of the Q-scored films Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and The Anderson Tapes), Christopher Cross, James Ingram, Michael Jackson, Peggy Lipton (Jones’s wife at the time), Quincy Jones, Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Lionel Richie, Brenda Russell, Dionne Warwick and Stevie Wonder. And Ernie Watts solos on tenor sax.
“Birdland”- Quincy Jones from Back on the Block (1989). If anyone could bring Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan together – on one song! – it was Quincy Jones. But the highlight of this terrific cover of Joe Zawinul’s classic is surely guitarist George Benson.
The drum machine is programmed more sensitively here than elsewhere on Back on the Block, an album that features such hits as “I’ll Be Good to You,” with Ray Charles and Chaka Khan, and “Tomorrow,” with Tevin Campbell. But “Birdland” is a superb cover of one of fusion jazz’s few notable standards.
“Keep Reachin'” – Quincy Jones / Mark Ronson / Chaka Khan from Quincy (2018). “Look, ain’t nobody tell you what you can not do.” If Quincy Jones didn’t write that, he certainly lived it. If anyone made “a big plane like a rocket and watch it soar across the moon,” it was Quincy Jones.
This genuine joy sounds like it could have been waxed a full four decades earlier, but it only appears over the end credits of the wonderful 2018 Netflix documentary Quincy, co-directed by Alan Hicks and Quincy’s multi-talented and hugely accomplished daughter, Rashida Jones.
“Keep Reachin'” – written by Andrew Wyatt, Chaka Khan, Jeffrey Nath Bhasker and Mark Ronson – is helmed by the great Chaka Khan, a frequent Q-collaborator going back those previously-noted four decades, and producer Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse, “Uptown Funk,” Barbie), a 21st Century producer who may very well be one of Quincy Jones’s musical progeny. A great note to go out on.
I never met Quincy Jones, but I will always love him. I think many other listeners – who may well choose a completely different set of tunes than those I chose here – feel the same way. Love and Happiness. Rest in Peace, Q.