‘I listen to the orchestra like an X-ray machine - because I’ve been around it all my life. It’s what I do.’
Quincy Jones

I recently watched the Netflix documentary ‘Quincy’ which chronicles the life and career of the great Quincy Jones.

Jones is a multi-instrumentalist, a hugely gifted songwriter, composer and arranger. He has produced world famous music, film and television. Jones is richly textured orchestration, moody soundtracks and smooth soulful jazz. He is ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ and ‘Sinatra at the Sands.’ He is ‘The Quintessence’, ‘Soul Bossa Nova’ and ‘Killer Joe’; ‘The Italian Job’ and ‘Ironside.’ He is ‘Give Me the Night,’ ‘Off the Wall’ and ‘Thriller.’ He is a pioneer, an entrepreneur, a raconteur. He is ‘The Dude.’

Let us consider some of the lessons that Jones can teach us.

1. ‘Know What You Come From’

Jones was born on the South Side of Chicago in 1933.

He had a tough childhood. The neighbourhood was poor and gang-ridden. A local youth pinned his hand to a fence with a switchblade. On another occasion he was attacked with an ice pick. At 7 he had to look on as his mother, who suffered from schizophrenia, was taken away in a straitjacket. 

‘You wanna be what you see, and that’s all we saw.’

His father, a carpenter, took him away from it all, first to stay in rural Kentucky with his grandmother, a former slave, and then to Seattle, where Jones Snr got a job in the Naval Shipyard. 

When he was 11 Jones broke into a military store and discovered an upright piano. 

‘The first time I touched it, it’s like every drop of blood, my heart and soul, and every cell in my body, said: ‘This is what you’re going to do for the rest of your life.’’

Jones learned percussion, French horn, tuba, trombone and sousaphone.  He became particularly adept at the trumpet. He hung out in nightclubs and by 14 he was playing in the Bumps Blackwell Band. Around this time he also met 16-year-old Ray Charles and they became lifelong friends.

In 1951 Jones earned a scholarship to Seattle University, and he subsequently transferred to the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Jones was now on his way up, but he never forgot his roots.

‘To know what you come from, it makes it easier to get where you’re going.’

2. Find the Thing You Can Control

‘Music was the one thing I could control. It was the one thing that offered me my freedom.’

Jones joined the Lionel Hampton Band and embarked on tours of the US that entailed 70 straight nights of performance. In the South he encountered the grim realities of segregation. He took solace in his music.

‘Not one drop of my self worth depends on your acceptance of me.’

3. ‘Learn to Deal with the Valleys’

Jones settled in New York where he made a living taking freelance commissions, writing, performing and arranging. His big break came when Dinah Washington hired him to arrange her next album. He subsequently worked with Louie Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Ray Charles.

All was going well. And yet Jones was mortified when his sick mother, having tracked him down performing in Birdland, admonished him for playing the devil’s music. Count Basie offered consolation:

‘Learn to deal with the valleys. The hills will take care of themselves.’

4. ‘You Can’t Know if You Don’t Go’

Jones toured Europe with Lionel Hampton, and the Middle East and South America with Dizzy Gillespie. He developed a lifelong taste for travel, for meeting local people and experiencing different cultures. 

‘Get into the lifestyle of the real people in the country...You can’t know if you don’t go.’

5. Study Your Craft

In 1957 Jones moved to Paris, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger, the renowned composer and teacher of contemporary music. 

‘The more restrictions you place on your music, the more freedom you have.’

Boulanger encouraged him to think outside his jazz upbringing and to consider the history of all kinds of music.

‘There are only 12 notes and you should really investigate what everybody did with those 12 notes.’

6. Study the Business

In 1959 Jones took his own 18-piece orchestra on the road across North America and Europe with the musical ‘Free and Easy.’ Though the concerts met enthusiastic audiences and rave reviews, the earnings failed to support a band of that size. 

'We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving. That's when I discovered that there was music, and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.'

To ease his financial problems Jones took a job back in New York working for Mercury Records. At the age of 28 he became the first African American Vice-President of a major label. Working for the first time in the pop sphere, he produced million-selling singles for Lesley Gore, including 'It's My Party' and ‘You Don’t Own Me.’

7. Trust Your Partners

In 1964 Frank Sinatra hired Jones to arrange and conduct an album with Count Basie, ‘It Might as Well Be Swing.’ Jones went on to oversee the singer's classic live album, ‘Sinatra at the Sands.’ 

Jones’ relationship with Sinatra was a fertile one. It was sustained by mutual respect and good faith. 

‘No contract, just a handshake.’

8. Don’t Put Yourself in a Box

Throughout his career Jones resisted traditional categorisation.

‘In order for music to grow, the critics must stop categorising and let the musicians get involved in all different facets of music. We will die if we get stuck in one area of music.’

In 1964 Jones was invited by film director Sidney Lumet to compose the soundtrack for ‘The Pawnbroker.’ He relocated to Los Angeles and over subsequent years his film credits included ‘In Cold Blood’, ‘In the Heat of the Night’ and ‘The Italian Job.’ He also turned his hand to TV themes, among which were ‘Ironside,’ ‘The Cosby Show’ and ‘Roots.’

9. ‘Do It Well or Not at All’
In the 1960s Jones continued to work as an arranger for a galaxy of jazz stars. In the 1970s he went on to produce the Brothers Johnson, Rufus and Chaka Khan, and George Benson. He was also releasing a series of his own smooth jazz and soul albums. He had a phenomenal work ethic that he’d picked up from his father.

'Once a task is just begun, never leave until it's done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all.'

In fact Jones was pushing himself too hard. In 1974 he suffered a brain aneurism from which he was lucky to recover.

10. Be Underestimated

In 1978, when Jones was working on the soundtrack for movie musical ‘The Wiz’, Michael Jackson asked him to produce his upcoming solo album. This was something of a challenge: many critics were sceptical of Jackson’s ability to evolve beyond a child-star; and the record company was not convinced that jazz-steeped Jones fitted the brief. Jackson and Jones pressed on.

‘The best position to be in is to be underestimated. Because if you’re underestimated no one expects anything.’

The resulting record, ‘Off the Wall,’ was a pop-soul classic and sold 20 million copies. 

11.  ‘Leave Room for the Magic’

In 1982 Jones produced Jackson’s next album, ‘Thriller.’ Jones was a perfectionist, obsessed with detail, but he was always careful to leave room for creative flair and spontaneity.

 ‘Always leave 20-30% of room for the Lord to walk through the room. Because then you’re leaving room for the magic, and records are about capturing the magic - real magic moments - on tape. That’s what communicates: the magic of the moment.’

When Jones asked Eddie Van Halen to play his famous solo on 'Beat It,’ he avoided giving him specific instructions.

‘I’m not gonna sit here to try and tell you what to play. The reason you’re here is because of what you do play.’

12. Don’t Allow Time for Paralysis from Analysis

Jones worked on ‘Thriller’ with his crack team of engineer Bruce Swedien and Cleethorpes-born songwriter Rod Temperton. They didn’t have the luxury of time, but sometimes that can be a blessing.

‘We didn’t have time for paralysis from analysis. We made ‘Thriller’ in 8 weeks.’

The resultant record sold 60 million copies and became the bestselling album in history.

13. ‘Be Humble with Your Creativity and Grateful for Your Success’

Despite his phenomenal career, Jones was always alert to the fine line between confidence and arrogance.

‘You need confidence, but an ego is just an overdressed insecurity.’

In 1985 Jones coaxed a stunning array of talent into the studio to record ‘We Are the World’ and raise money for the victims of famine in Ethiopia. He had a sign taped on the entrance:

‘Check Your Ego at the Door’. 

14.  ‘Keep On Keepin’ On’

‘You only live 26,000 days. And so I’m gonna wear all of them out…They gonna know we came through here.’

As the years rolled on Jones sustained his tireless activity across a number of fields. He co-produced ‘The Color Purple’ and ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.’ He helped start Vibe magazine which became a hip-hop bible. His career spans over 60 years in the entertainment industry.

Jones comes across as a man, not just of phenomenal talent, but also of great charm.  

‘I can party all the time. Never had a problem with that.’

He’s also capable of self-reflection. Conscious of the impact that his mother’s illness and absence had on him in later life, he gives a compelling explanation for his eternal restlessness.

‘I realised from the time I was a little boy to that moment I was always running, always trying to fill that black hole in my soul. I ran because there was nothing behind me to hold me up. I ran because I thought that was all there was to do. I thought that to stay in one place was to die.’

Jones acknowledges that his industry, perfectionism and lust for life may have come at a cost to his home life. He has been married three times and has had seven children with five different women. At the end of the Netflix documentary, his daughter Rashida Jones, who directed the film, asks her father:

‘Is there anything that you think that you’ve tried to do that you didn’t succeed at?’

Jones pauses for a moment and smiles back at her:

‘Marriage.’

'Remember the days when we never had a dime
And our dreams seemed a million miles away.
But we made it baby
Facin' the bad times with a smile.
Here we are and we're growin' stronger day by day,
Cause we got love times love.
It's always there for us to share.
And girl it sure feels good to know
You're by my side.
Cause we're just two high hearts
That beat as one forever on,
With love times love to keep us satisfied every night.’

George Benson, ‘Love X Love’ (R Temperton) 

No. 286