Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr., also known as "Q", is an American record producer, conductor, arranger, composer, musician, television producer, film producer, instrumentalist, magazine founder, entertainment company executive, and humanitarian. His career spans six decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 28 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend Award in 1991...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusic Producer
Date of Birth14 March 1933
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
I am committing myself to doing everything possible to pull the resources together to aid the children of not only Cambodia, but the children of all the countries in the world.
It's worth about a half-billion dollars now. He had magazine publishing, too, with Liberty. It's ironic because I ended up being the founder of Vibe magazine. There are just a few people who will teach you what that's about.
Ray Charles is a giant. He was one of my mentors. He would write arrangements in Braille, and translate it to me. At 14 and 16 we used to sit in Seattle on those rainy days and dream about what would happen.
That will always be my music, man. I play 'Kind of Blue' every day -- it's my orange juice. It still sounds like it was made yesterday.
Just blow in it and sound bad for about a year and then make it sound a little bit better, and you get a little band together, and then you get a few jobs. You take four guys that sound half bad, but if they're 25 percent each, they can give 100 percent, you know?
You Make Your Mistakes To Learn How To Get To The Good Stuff
The only music I don't like is bad music.
I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain't that the truth."
Everybody has their idiosyncrasies.
There’s nothing in the world worse than having an opportunity that you’re not prepared for. Good luck usually follows the collision of opportunity and preparation - it’s a result of that collision. You’ve got to be prepared. So, make your mistakes now and make them quickly. If you’ve made the mistakes, you know what to expect the next time. That’s how you become valuable.
If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.
It's easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play.
It's amazing how much trouble you can get in when you don't have anything else to do.
I'm a tremendous believer and supporter in hip-hop and rap.