Quincy Jones Interview

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).  

Frogman, 
Okay,  I now understand your reasoning and context for your comments,  makes clear sense to me now.
Charles 

Bruno Mars is nothing special. There, i said it! 

Did anyone take into account that he once had a brain anurism and is 85 years old?