Quincy Jones Interview

Q stopped being relevant to me when he 4ever linked himself at the hip to MJ.  This interview read like the ramblings of a stoned out old goober!

Great comments by bdp24. I agree, except that I think the opinion of someone who has been such a force in the music INDUSTRY is relevant if only to explain some of the seemingly unexplainable. What I think is being missed here, and is obvious to me from his comments, is the reality of the corrupting power of that kind of success and wealth and of being part of the ENTERTAINMENT elite. It takes a special personality to remain grounded and not lose touch with the basics of what it is to be an artist. In most respects what happens in the upper echelons of the pop music world is no different from what happens in Hollywood; it is a breeding ground for overblown egos and self-aggrandizement. For me the most interesting thing in his comments was his focus on and criticisms of the musicianship of The Beatles, Hendrix and others. Q is an extremely talented producer/arranger without a doubt, but he was a very mediocre section trumpet player who found his niche as an orchestrator while in Basie’s band. I know and have known so many orchestrators who when hanging out with the players on a session or rehearsal like nothing more than to “talk shop” with the musicians who play whatever their own instrument was when they were getting started in the business. Deep inside some of them are frustrated instrumentalists.

Great comments everyone. Well, except czarivey; The "Beatles do suck"? No they don't, but you do. Wolf is absolutely correct---Rubber Soul and Revolver in particular contain music as fine as anyone in Pop has ever made.

Hi Frogman,
As always I appreciate your insight. Looking for clarification, are you saying that you cannot critique the musicianship of others unless you yourself were a great musician yourself? Jones certainly wasn’t a trumpeter anywhere near his contemporaries, Miles, Brownie Chet, or Kenny Dorham. However he’d be able to recognize talent (or lack of) in other musicians. He had lifelong and enormous exposure to many musicians across a hugh spectrum.

As a producer and arranger he’d be analogous to a highly successful coach/manager who was but a marginal player. Bill Parcels or John Madden (NFL) or say Phil Jackson (NBA). No exceptional talent as players themselves but clearly could identify the talent level of players after watching them perform. Just as Q. Jones could easily sort out the really good musicians upon hearing them play..
Charles

Charles,

**** are you saying that you cannot critique the musicianship of others unless you yourself were a great musician yourself? ****

Not at all; and I could not agree more with your comments.   The motivation for Q’s criticisms of some musicians’ ability is, and I believe I left, as an open question.  My point was simply that I found it interesting that he should focus so much on the technical ability of musicians while (as in the case of The Beatles) apparently not be able to recognize the generally acknowledged excellence of their music in other areas.  I found this particularly interesting coming from a person who had relatively limited ability as an instrumentalist himself, and whose important contributions were in other areas as well.  Any deeper digging into the psychology of it all I would leave to others to judge for themselves.  Don’t get me wrong I am a very big fan of his work, from the soundtrack to the film “The Pawnbroker” to “Sinatra At The Sands” to, yes, MJ’s “Thriller”; and on and on.  But I was surprised and frankly very turned off by what came across in that interview as an attitude of overblown ego and elitist attitude about art; particularly interesting coming from someone whose artistic output later in his career, while technically brilliant and on the highest level of production quality, has often been no more than fantastic ear candy (to use his own term).