Quincy Jones - musician, arranger, composer, producer

Quincy Jones started out in Jazz bands, playing Trumpet with some of the leading names in Jazz and Bebop including Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Theolonius Monk, Herbie Hancock, Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Holiday. He took up arranging and composing band music, spent some time in the record company Mercury Records, reinvented himself as a film composer, before becoming one of the leading music producers. Along the way he demonstrated a knack for honing some fine tunes, be they Jazz, Blues, Soul, Latin, Rock or Pop, and he has worked with Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Steven Speilberg and Ice-T. He can no longer play trumpet following an emergency operation to fix an aneurism in the brain, but his other careers are enough to keep him very busy indeed!

As a composer, he can produce sleezy, dark-sounding music as required for films like "In Cold Blood", "The Pawnbroker" and "In the Heat of the Night", but can also create lively upbeat music too. "The Italian Job" is the classic caper movie starring Michael Caine, Noel Coward, racing Minis and a great soundtrack by Quincy Jones. The title track is sung by Matt Munro in English and Italian, and other tracks are full of 60s kitsch including a jazzed up version of Greensleeves. Jones was staying in London to work on the movie with the ever-reliable lyricist Don Black, and was fascinated and amused by Cockney Rhyming Slang. This led to the real musical tour-de-force of the movie in the form of the "Getta Bloomin' Move On!" track by the "Self Preservation Society" towards the end of the movie which successfully blends bits of Classical Bach, English Pomp and Circumstance, Cockney Cheek, Football Chants and carefree caper frolicks. It's worth getting the soundtrack for this track alone.

Jones holds the rare distinction of having created the score for a Steven Spielberg film (other than the director's usual partner John Williams), since Speilberg asked him to score The Colour Purple starring Oprah Winfrey. As a producer in the pop world, he was responsible for many well-known singles and albums, and boosting many singers' careers. To name a few, there is "It's my Party" (and I'll cry if I want to), Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and the charity song "We are the World" to raise awareness of poverty and starvation in Africa. He put together "The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller" about the making of this record-breaking album, and his groovy 70s tune "Soul Bossa Nova" (has been used in the Austin Powers movies, particularly number 2 though Jones himself appears briefly conducting an orchestra near the begining of the 3rd movie "Goldmember". He has some way to go to keep up with Burt Bacharach's cameo appearances in the series however!

The track "Soul Bossa Nova", which effortlessly provides the mood for the Austin Power movies, dates from the early 1960s and was used by Jones in his soundtrack for the Rod Steiger film "The Pawnbroker". In the 1970s it was also used as the theme tune for a TV game show in Canada called "Definition". Its more recent rediscovery finds it not only appearing in the Austin Powers movies, but also sampled by a number of hip hop tracks including "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style" by Dream Warriors and "Number One Spot" by Ludacris.

These days Jones is also involved in film and TV production, such as the Wil Smith vehicle "Fresh Prince of Bel Air". Jones himself appeared in one episode of this. Those of you who have seen the UK TV programme about "Heathrow" will also have had an opportunity to spot Jones' VIP appearance in one episode. Jones' definitive screen appearance is the biographical movie "Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones". This two-hour film features Jones and many of the famous people he has worked with, his early life in Chicago, the Jazz bands, and his various careers and families (he has been married 3 times). En route this film touches upon hardship, friendship, racism, ambition, tragedy and success. There is an in-depth interview with Quincy Jones published on the Academy of Achievement website. Look out also for "Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones" which can be found at these links on www.amazon.com and www.amazon.co.uk.

Films by Quincy Jones:

• The Pawnbroker - among other music this features the "Soul Bossa Nova"
• In Cold Blood - Jones' music was oscar nominated
• In the Heat of the Night - very Bluesy music and a song
• They call me Mr. Tibbs - the sequel
• Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
• The Italian Job - the classic caper movie and wonderful tongue-in-cheek soundtrack
• MacKenna's Gold
• The Anderson Tapes
• The Getaway - for Sam Peckinpah, replacing music by Jerry Fielding this is a fairly low-key score, the main feature being Toots Thielemans with his Jazz harmonica
• The Hot Rock
• The Wiz - where Quincy first worked with Michael Jackson
• Making Michael Jackson's Thriller
• The Colour Purple - not John Williams for this Steven Speilberg film, but another oscar nomination for Jones
• Austin Powers 2 (etc...) - Soul Bossa Nova
• Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones - A biographical film featuring Jones and the people who have worked with him

TV music by Quincy Jones:

• Definition - Canadian game show which used "Soul Bossa Nova" as its theme tune
• A Man Called Ironside
• Roots

Recommendations:

We have already expressed a fondness for "The Italian Job", and the soundtrack for this can be found on www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk. Delving more into Jones' film music roots, you can't go wrong with "In the Heat of the Night" whose first track features the soulfull vocals of Ray Charles. You can also find this CD at the same locations via these links: www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk.