Quincy Jones Interview

Bruno Mars is nothing special. There, I said it again. And, if he thinks he is it makes me question his judgement.

Music is not just about sitting in a dedicated audio room and listening to the music with a critical ear, sometimes music just feels good and makes you want to tap your foot and dance. 

Buddy Holly: "Jazz is strictly for the stay-at-homes."

Ringo Starr was considered by some (many? most?) to be the worst musician in The Beatles (not true; John was ;-), yet he had a fair number of defenders who were themselves well respected by their Jazz peers. One such was Gregg Bissonnette, the drummer in Maynard Ferguson’s Big Band, who is one of Ringo’s most vocal defenders. Some people get, some don’t.

Who cares what people think? I mean, come on!

I was at a party in the early 70s after working on a Delaney and Bonnie show in Honolulu. Delaney wound up sitting next to me and we talked for a long time about stuff…amazing guy…he said he thought Ringo was the best rock and roll drummer in music, period, and he'd recently been hanging around with the English dudes. I thought that was pretty cool, although hey…those sort of statements are taken with a grain of salt of course, but to say that the Beatles weren't good musicians is ridiculous…I've been a professional musician for 50 years and remain astonished by Beatles music, and I mix live concerts with the best musicians on the planet. John wrote songs that still resonate everywhere and although he couldn't play like John Scofield or Joe Pass, who cares really? Get the Hollywood Bowl concert recording re-mix and ask yourself if they play well during incessant screaming (did they have monitors? I wonder)…they did play beautifully, utterly kick ass, and that's sort of what defined them in the early years. Jazz geniuses often perform Beatles stuff because it's simply great music, and if people don't agree with that I don't think it matters.