Quincy Jones, according to his website: composer, artist, arranger, conductor, instrumentalist, record company executive, magazine founder, multi-media entrepreneur, humanitarian, investor, and record, film, and TV producer.
Quincy Jones is a music mogul, an icon in African-American music. The man's contribution to breaking down the barriers for the African-Americans in the music and film industry is so profound, it is a shame we don't hear more of it.
This book details on the life of Jones, his childhood and his introduction to music and his eventual growth into the musician/composer who'd decide to never stop at anything. The book also intimately discusses his marriages and his children and friendships. There are quite a number of "witness" accounts from his friends and family giving fresh perspective to Quincy's stories. Some things Quincy mentioned in the book are:
-> His family and childhood and eventual roles each of these characters in his early life had played over time. Particular highlights are his troubled relationship with his mother, his love for his father and brother.
-> His friendship with Ray Charles, which inspired him greatly as a teenager because Charles was blind but completely independent of family.
Ray Charles, rehearsing for "Duke Ellington... We Love You Madly", produced by Quincy Jones (right)
-> His time with the Lionel Hampton band and his tour to Europe, which completely change his perspective of the level of conflict between black and white people in the US. It was during this time he struck up a friendship with Clifford Brown.
-> His tour with Dizzy Gillespie sponsored by the USIA and the disgraceful treatment of the black musicians on tour.
-> His intimate friendships with many icons of jazz music, including Clifford Brown, Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and many more.
Quincy Jones, Count Basie and Frank Sinatra
-> The time he scored music for the film adaptation of Capote's In Cold Blood and won an Academy Award for Best Original Score (the first African American to win in the category). Capote had persistently lobbied to have Jones removed from the project because he was a "black man writing music for a white film".
-> His near-death experience after suffering a brain aneurysm in 1974 and the subsequent memorial service held in-between two brain-surgeries.
-> His work with Michael Jackson on three of pop music's most influential records (Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad). This section also relates to the recording of the E.T. album with Steven Spielberg and the subsequent legal troubles.
"From left: Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson and Steven Spielberg working on the E.T. album"
-> The recording of "We Are the World", where many musical icons got together to raise money for the victims of Ethiopia's famine.
-> His work with Spielberg on The Color Purple, a film about the struggles of African American women.
-> His work on television scoring and eventually his work on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and his eventual advocacy for hip-hop culture.
... and many more such events in Quincy's life. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book with a fresh mind and the stories were truly inspiring and at times, shocking. I especially liked the honesty with which Quincy narrates his stories: He doesn't try to paint himself as a righteous man. He mentions his regrets with sadness and he is guarded on his achievements.
I didn't really know much about Quincy Jones before reading this memoir. I knew that he produced three of the best Michael Jackson albums and that he was involved in the 1950s/1960s jazz-scene. Then I read an interview he did for Vulture.com (http://www.vulture.com/2018/02/quincy-jones-in-conversation.html) and was so intrigued by his personality and the interesting anecdotes he had to tell that I immediately went and got his autobiography.
This guy is really a jack of all trades. I never realised what an important figure Quincy Jones really was in all kind of areas related to the entertainment industry. But apart from that, he really just seems like a fascinating character with all his friends, his multiple wives and many kids, who still love him, despite him being so entangled with his ambitious work. You would think, he would just be making that stuff up for his memoir if it wasn't for the letters from friends and family members that are inserted in-between each chapter (and some of them would probably count as chapters of their own).
Definitely a recommendation for everyone who is interested in fascinating and unique real-life characters, even apart from the whole music-related aspect of the book. It sheds an interesting kind of light on America's dark history with black people. Because other than most narratives about or written by black people born in pre-WWII-America, this one is about one of the very rare occasions where a black person actually rose all the way to the top, pioneering in many positions formerly only held by white people. It may not be representative of the situation at the time as a whole, but Quincy Jones' exceptional situation makes everything all the more fascinating. And that is not because of a lack of hurdles in his way - quite the opposite - it is fascinating because he came so far DESPITE the myriad of ocstacles he had to overcome, only due to his skin color.
I did not read all of this. After the first 200 pages, I pretty much knew what he'd grown up with (crazy mother, angry stepmother, emotionally absent father, and life of deliquency saved by amazing talent arranging music). At that point I got sick of all the language and didn't care about the name dropping or the sleeping and drugging around and skimmed to the end. He produced some amazing music, but he's not a life model I'm chosing to follow.
Simply written- thoroughly engaging. I read this biography in record time! I enjoyed it most when he wasn't listing every single person he came into contact with- the names are important to someone, but dozens at a time was a bit tedious. Local interest for me also as he started out in Seattle.
I didn't know much about him prior to this book. Wow, what an amazing path his life took! He pretty much personifies the American Dream; he is like a Horatio Alger character come to life. It is honestly startling to see where he started to where he has ended up. Of course, as with any success story, luck and timing play a role as well as hard work, determination and talent. Also charm. QJ seems like an extremely charming man.
QJ had the full package of intellect, talent, "grit" and laser focused drive. Combine that with the luck of meeting the right people at the right time and being in the right place at the right time....and hello astounding long term success and great wealth.
It was a bit funny after a while, how many famous people he ended up connecting with. From befriending Ray Charles while both were in their mid teens, going to college with Clint Eastwood, hanging out with a young Marlon Brando who was in his first Broadway play, meeting a young Malcolm X fresh out of prison in the early 50's, meeting Aretha Franklin as a 12 year old gospel singer at her Dad's church... the list goes on and on. He discovered Oprah, made Michael Jackson a solo star, became besties with Frank Sinatra(they never signed contracts, it was all done with a handshake!), vacationed with Steven Spielberg, got robbed by a junkie Charlie Bird Parker, had Dinah Washington cook him grits, made Will Smith famous by casting him in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Alex Haley lived with him in his guest room while writing Roots.....man, it just goes on and on.
That "on and on" in terms of talking about people got old. At times it could be like one of those Academy Award speeches where they are thanking the postman, their first grade teacher, their hairdresser etc. QJ would list literally every single person he worked with on a project which I guess helps to explain his success - he doesn't forget people- but it can be repetitive and dull reading lists of people multiple times in a book.
QJ was both very self-reflective and stunningly obtuse about himself. We all are at times, though, I think. He mentions feeling guilty and upset about his poor parenting. I think he does realize what he did wrong but doesn't grasp the depth of how fucked up it truly was at times, especially with his only son, Snoopy. How heartbreaking it was, when at 14 neither parent wanted him. How devastating for him. QJ mentions that as the biggest mistake in his life & I think it was. It's amazing his son turned out ok after his crazy childhood with a drug addicted mom and absentee dad.
I think QJ was most obtuse about his relationships with woman. What a horndog he was! Eeewww. A real grade A jerk to women. Constantly cheating on them, playing them against each other, neglecting them, lying to them. He has some serious mommy issues, as the phrase goes. He is aware enough to see the irony of a guy like him ending up with 6 gorgeous daughters. He certainly had a nightmare mother/child relationship with his schizophrenic mother. That scene at the beginning of the book, when he visits his mom at the psychiatric hospital - wow. It was like out of a horror movie. I think his promiscuity is definitely because of that lack of maternal love he got as a child.
I'm glad I got this at the library. I leaned a lot about the American music industry of the twentieth century.
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