The Night I Met Quincy Jones

Meeting Q

On the evening of December 18, 2010, the night I met Quincy Jones, he was sitting like a cool, hip Buddha in the middle of a private room in the Time Warner Complex in midtown Manhattan at a ritzy fundraiser for the Jazz Foundation of America (JFA).  I wouldn’t have even known about the event if it weren’t for corporate titan Dick Parsons, the chair of JFA.

Mr. Parsons and I had breakfast that morning at the Terrace Club across from Rockefeller Center to discuss a jazz video series I was hosting back then. I arrived early—Parsons was already there. After some small talk about New Rochelle, NY, where Jewel and I lived at the time, Mr. Parsons invited me to attend the evening’s affair, adding that Q would be there.

I jumped at the chance to meet one of my musical heroes.

With Q, after the first International Jazz Day

I’ve met many famous people in my 25+ years as a journalist, but this night was extra special. All sorts of folks were present, most with deep pockets, one-upping each other to see who’d donate the most to help this national organization for blues and jazz musicians in need. Except for Parsons, who sat in a corner near the back of the room, overseeing the scene deep in the cut, none held my attention and interest like Q.

He was speaking with the bassist Buster Williams when I approached. I introduced myself; he paused, looked me in my eyes, sizing me up, then flashed a knowing, sage-like smile. I mentioned the great jazz composer-tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, who during an interview told me that he used to room with Quincy early in their careers.

“Boy, you better have a dictionary when you speak with Benny,” Q exclaimed, laughing with Williams. Benny is known in the jazz world as a man of great elegance and eloquence, with a sizable vocabulary. Then I mentioned to Q the sway his jazz recordings had on me as a teen, explaining how my career since college centered on the music.

“Man, whatever you do, don’t stop,” he said. “Jazz is America’s baby, and we need to nurture it.”

Getting Hip to Q’s Jazz Side

When I was in high school urban contemporary and pop radio stations would blast Michael Jackson hits from the late 1970s through the ’80s produced by Quincy. Yet Q’s earlier jazz work became a soundtrack for my life much more than his pop hits. Soulful, swingin’ jazz liberated me from the dregs of disco and reflected my deepest feelings and aspirations.

Benny Golson’s “Killer Joe,” from Quincy’s Walking in Space was a hit on New York jazz stations. Around this time, I discovered that Q had composed the themes for “Sanford and Son,” a black television favorite starring Redd Foxx, and the legal drama “Ironside” with Raymond Burr, a favorite of my grandparents’ generation.

But as a jazz newbie, I was most moved by a big band compilation recording of Q’s from the 1950s to early ‘60s re-released in 1978 as The Quintessential Charts. That’s the year I began playing the alto sax in high school. Songs such as “Quintessence,” with a majestic lead alto performance by Phil Woods, and the powerful shuffle rhythm and call-and-response horn section work of “Robot Portrait,” grooved me from toe to head.

The Quintessential Charts: an “equipment for living” soundtrack

The relaxed, laid-back swing of “Little Karen” by Benny Golson pointed the way to suave maturity that I, only 15, glimpsed dimly. This particular song had a special appeal because the tenor sax solo featured Eric Dixon, a long-time Basie sax section horn man who owned a bar called The Meeting Place on Jersey Street in the West Brighton section of Staten Island, where my love affair with jazz began.

The grit and sass of Q’s uptempo arrangement of Thelonious Monk’s “Straight, No Chaser” excited me, but then, as if to say “take it easy, young man, you’ve got a lot to learn,” the song “For Lena and Lennie” painted a sonic picture of the bittersweet blues of love relationships that through experience I’d see more clearly in years to come. 

“Hard Sock Dance,” swingin’ hard like Basie and Ellington, appealed to my competitive side, as two trumpeters, Freddie Hubbard and Thad Jones, traded burning choruses, an intense musical conversation. “Invitation” was mysterious, with the flute, harp, and the trombone, trumpet, and sax sections stating melodic shards in a prelude to the solos exploring variations on the exotic, Mediterranean theme. And my young mind was blown by “Stockholm Sweetnin’,” Q’s large ensemble arrangement of trumpet legend Clifford Brown’s gorgeous solo on the same song.

Q’s Tribute to Brownie and Other Jazz Greats

In 2012, when I interviewed Quincy before the Jazz Foundation of America gala at the Apollo Theater, I asked him about Brownie, Clifford Brown. “He was like my god, man. We were in Lionel Hampton’s band together. We heard him and Benny Golson and Gigi Gryce with Tadd Dameron down in Atlantic City.

“Clifford Brown—sitting next to him was like being in heaven. You know he left us at 25, right? I was in a session with Gil Evans and Helen Merrill when we heard. We used to hang out all the time, just night and day. What a great human being.”

Expanding, Q called the many great musicians who have passed on all “beautiful human beings; they’ll never leave. There’s chemical energy and spiritual energy. That spiritual energy will always be here.”