Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr., also known as "Q", is an American record producer, conductor, arranger, composer, musician, television producer, film producer, instrumentalist, magazine founder, entertainment company executive, and humanitarian. His career spans six decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 28 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend Award in 1991...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusic Producer
Date of Birth14 March 1933
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
It's worth about a half-billion dollars now. He had magazine publishing, too, with Liberty. It's ironic because I ended up being the founder of Vibe magazine. There are just a few people who will teach you what that's about.
I believe that a hundred years from now, when people look back at the 20th century, they will look at Miles, Bird, Clifford Brown, Ella and Dizzy, among elders as our Mozarts, our Chopins, our Bachs and Beethovens.
Seattle is like a global gumbo, a melting pot with all kinds of people - the rich, the poor, white people, some Chinese, Filipino, Jewish and black people - they're all here.
China's got a billion people and a hit record over there is a million records. You know that ain't right.
Young people should travel, and they don’t. You can’t know if you don’t go.
A lot of the guys were like that - Oscar Pettiford - they just took me under their wing, and that's why I automatically help young people. I just love it, because they did that for me.
The climate in the '50s and '60s for black performers or black people in the entertainment business was atrocious. It was atrocious.
I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young. Every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn't have MTV, we didn't have television.
I've been driven all my life by a spirit of adventure and a criminal level of optimism. I believed in my dreams because they were my only option. The people who make it to the top are addicted to their calling. You have to honor the gift God has given you. The people who get the call are the ones who'd be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren't being paid.
Tony is the one who knows how to fly us to the moon and get us back.
I've never looked back in my life. I don't want to see that stuff. I had blanked out a lot of stuff ... putting my mother in a straitjacket, my father holding her down, screaming.
Ray Charles is a giant. He was one of my mentors. He would write arrangements in Braille, and translate it to me. At 14 and 16 we used to sit in Seattle on those rainy days and dream about what would happen.
Did you remember to thank Eric Roberts ?
That will always be my music, man. I play 'Kind of Blue' every day -- it's my orange juice. It still sounds like it was made yesterday.