Obit: Quincy Jones musical polymath (1933-2024)

Subject: Obit: Quincy Jones musical polymath (1933-2024)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Nov 24 - 11:22 AM

This man could do everything. I read his New York Times obituary this morning and it was like going back through layers of an onion, all of the accomplishments layered on top of previous accomplishments. I'd forgotten he spent a lot of time in Seattle. I hadn't forgotten about the Thriller album but I didn't remember that he did soundtracks for so many films (The Pawnbroker, In Cold Blood, The Color Purple, and more, along with many TV program theme songs).

Quincy Jones worked with everybody over the years, and each job added to his skills and ability to make connections for others. Jazz, pop, hiphop and I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to have made it possible for a few in the folk and blues fields to move forward in their careers. His latest years really expanded to encompass a lot of musical scholarship in many areas.

In his final decades, Mr. Jones dedicated much of his time to charity work through his Listen Up! Foundation; established a Quincy Jones professorship of African American music at Harvard University; produced “Keep On Keepin’ On,” a 2014 film about the teacher-student relationship between the 89-year-old Clark Terry, Mr. Jones’s old mentor, and Justin Kauflin, a young blind jazz pianist; and released the album “Soul Bossa Nostra,” reprising songs he’d produced in the past, with appearances by Snoop Dogg, T-Pain and Amy Winehouse, who contributed a louche version of “It’s My Party” — her last commercial release before her death in 2011.

Mr. Jones stayed in the public eye. In 2018, he made headlines when he gave wide-ranging interviews to New York and GQ magazines that contained surprising comments about Michael Jackson and other subjects.

In 2017, he helped launch a video platform, Qwest TV, offering high-definition streams of jazz concerts and documentaries, and in 2022 he appeared on the album “Dawn FM” by the Weeknd, performing a monologue on the track “A Tale by Quincy.”

But even his not-fully-realized back-burner projects tell a story of their own, a kind of secondary biography of the obsessions and connections of a constantly busy man. Among them were a musical about Sammy Davis Jr.; a Cirque du Soleil show on the history of Black American music, from its African roots; a film about Brazilian carnivals; a film version of Ralph Ellison’s unfinished novel “Juneteenth”; and a film on the life of Alexander Pushkin, the Russian poet who was said to be of African origin.

Subject: RE: Obit: Quincy Jones musical polymath (1933-2024)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Nov 24 - 11:24 AM

Here is from The Guardian.

Widely and wildly talented musician and industry mogul worked with Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Will Smith and others

Jones was arguably the most versatile pop cultural figure of the 20th century, perhaps best known for producing the albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad for Michael Jackson in the 1980s, which made the singer the biggest pop star of all time. Jones also produced music for Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer and many others.

He was also a successful composer of dozens of film scores, and had numerous chart hits under his own name. Jones was a bandleader in big band jazz, an arranger for jazz stars including Count Basie, and a multi-instrumentalist, most proficiently on trumpet and piano. His TV and film production company, founded in 1990, had major success with the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and other shows, and he continued to innovate well into his 80s, launching Qwest TV in 2017, an on-demand music TV service. Jones is third only to Beyoncé and Jay-Z for having the most Grammy award nominations of all time – 80 to their 88 each – and is the awards’ third most-garlanded winner, with 28.

Subject: RE: Obit: Quincy Jones musical polymath (1933-2024)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Nov 24 - 12:20 PM

An obituary from Classic FM gives you an idea of the reach Mr. Jones had in his lifetime.

Quincy Jones – one of the most prolific musical figures of the past 50 years – has died at the age of 91. His incredible career spanned multiple genres across seven decades, collaborating with some of the biggest stars of the last century, including Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer and Michael Jackson.

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born on 14 March 1933 in Chicago. His father, Quincy Jones Sr., was a semi-professional baseball player and a carpenter. His mother, Sarah Frances, was a bank officer and an apartment manager.

Jones gained a reputation as a highly skilled and versatile composer and arranger. He moved to Paris in the 50s and studied with Nadia Boulanger, the woman behind many of the 20th century’s greatest composers, and the avant-garde composer Olivier Messiaen, where he immersed himself in the post-war classical music scene.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Jones remarked, “There are 12 notes that have been floating around the universe for 720 years now, and we have those same 12 notes that Brahms, Bach and Beethoven had.”

“When I moved to Paris in 1957 and studied with Boulanger, I saw Stravinsky every day. He was with her, too.”

In addition to his production for pop stars, Jones wrote over 30 film scores, including The Italian Job.

He also rubbed shoulders with Pablo Picasso, and in the latter years of his life was a mentor figure to cross-genre phenomenon Jacob Collier, which marks Jones’ incredible life as a bridge between two worlds.

No matter what Jones was working on, his style was marked by a very distinctive sound world: lush strings, catchy melodies and cutting-edge production techniques.

In addition to his work with musical titans, he was the artistic advisor for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, spoke 26 languages and wrote the iconic ‘Soul Bossa Nova’, later used as the theme tune to Austin Powers.

Some of this content (about Nadia Boulanger) is found in this short video.

Subject: RE: Obit: Quincy Jones musical polymath (1933-2024)
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 04 Nov 24 - 01:25 PM

My travels sometimes put me in the broadcast orbit of NPR station
WICN in Massachusetts, which mostly programs jazz
(although there are also programs of folk and acoustic blues).

Quincy Jones tunes and arrangements are a regular WICN staple,
usually involving his big band.
Recently I heard on WICN the well-known Quincy Jones arrangement
of the Benny Golson tune "Killer Joe."