Spanning 70 years and towering roles as a musician, songwriter/ composer, producer, arranger, entrepreneur and more, Quincy Jones’ career in music is unparalleled.
Jones — “Q” to friends and collaborators, who died late Sunday at the age of 91 — revolutionized how audiences across the globe heard popular music by erasing genre boundaries while playing to the free spirit of the jazz sounds of his start. An ear for unique collaborations, ace musicianship, bold studio techniques and groundbreaking integration of Latin and African sounds into pop, are just a few of his achievements.
Here are 15 of the most memorable moments from his incredible career:
Quincy Jones – “Boo’s Blues” (1957)
Jones’ first full-length album as a bandleader, conductor and arranger (not yet as producer, that was Creed Taylor’s job) “This is How I Feel About Jazz,” is an immediate blueprint for Q’s entire career. On his bright, flighty composition “Boo’s Blues,” Q showed off his predilection for cleanly layering traditional jazz instruments with some of the finest session cats of the era, including bassist Charles Mingus, flautist Herbie Mann and alto saxophonist Phil Woods. Jones also coolly reinterpreted a genre – the blues – as slinky and sophisticated. This brand of idiom deconstruction and crisp sound became a hallmark of Jones’ work from this point forward.
Ray Charles – “One Mint Julep” (1961)
While Jones’ tasty arrangement of Bobby Timmons’ blues bopping “Moanin’” for his buddy Ray is another example of his genre-shifting sound, “One Mint Julep” takes the party one step further. Both tracks come from Charles’s big band classic “Genius + Soul = Jazz.” But on “Julep,” Jones turns up the heat on Charles’ swinging Hammond B3 organ, brightens the brass section (which includes trumpeter Clark Terry and trombonist Jimmy Cleveland) and gives the track a cha-cha-cha rhythm courtesy of drummer Roy Haynes. “One Mint Julep” went to No. 1 on the R&B chart, and No. 8 on Billboard’s pop chart.
Dinah Washington – “Mad about the Boy” (1961)
Penned by Noël Coward in the early 1930s, jazz vocalist Dinah Washington’s take on desire at a distance was produced and arranged by Jones and played by his orchestra as something slower and more simmering than its usual 4/4 time signature. Paced by Jones to a walking 6/8, Washington’s intentions became more bad than “Mad,” and the stringed, lounge-like production has a sweetly sensual vibe to it. Quincy went on to arrange and produce such titans as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and Peggy Lee, but Dinah started it all. What a difference a change of pace can make …
Quincy Jones – “Soul Bossa Nova” (1962)
1962’s cold Christmas got steamier when Jones composed and produced this sexy song for his “Big Band Bossa Nova” album and its trend-conscious take on smooth Brazilian syncopation. What makes Jones’ version of the bossa nova special to his sound is his usual use of top-tier jazz musicians (Lalo Schifrin plays piano, Rahsaan Roland Kirk plays flute) and a cuíca providing that signature “giggle” at the song’s start. Of course, Mike Myers gets pop-cultural credit, too, for bringing Jones’ track into the 21st century with its use as the opening theme to “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” (following the Dream Warriors’ 1990 hit “My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style,” which sampled it heavily).
Lesley Gore, “It’s My Party” (1963)
Hanging onto his love of Latin percussion and cool hot brass, Jones — who not only produced the song but signed 16-year-old Gore to Mercury Records — created one of pop’s angstiest adolescent hits. With its double-tracked vocals, handclap beat, quirky chord changes, aggressive brass and contagious melody, “It’s My Party” out Spector-ed Phil Spector’s girl-group wall of sound at its commercial peak.
Quincy Jones – “The Pawnbroker: Main Title” (1964)
Amplifying film director Sidney Lumet’s gritty tale of a man trying to outrun his horrors while jailed in a Nazi camp, first-time score composer and arranger Jones tamped down his usual major chords and bright brassy jazz for something muted, moody, minor key and impressionistic. Most notable within Jones’ theme is the use of vibraphone when set against his orchestra’s melancholy strings.
Quincy Jones – “You’ve Got It Bad Girl” (1973)
When Quincy Jones got the funk on his “You’ve Got It Bad Girl” album, he got it (sorry) bad: The entire disc is filled with raunchy R&B, rippling with tight rhythms and mellifluous melodies. First, he turned the Lovin’ Spoonful’s 60s-soulful “Summer in the City” less dirty than deified by slowing it down, chilling it out, and welcoming the lightest of Hammond organs and Valerie Simpson’s honeyed vocals to the proceedings. While this track’s intro went on to be sampled by Eminem and the Roots, “The Streetbeater” holds an entirely different sphere of influence. Better known as the theme song to Redd Foxx’s NBC television show “Sanford and Son,” Jones propels Toots Thielemans’ raunchy honking harmonica, Dave Grusin’s electric piano and more cowbells than Will Ferrell’s Blue Oyster Cult impersonation into the soundtrack stratosphere. Somebody, please remaster and re-release “You Got It Bad Girl” ASAP.
Quincy Jones – “Body Heat” (1974)
Jones successfully navigated his way past sunny funk and into the bluesy nighttime of quiet storm romanticism with this 1974 album and its sultry title track. Rather than go for the plucked, plum tone of 1970s R&B bass, Jones welcomed his old pal, jazz bassist Ray Brown, to the proceedings and gave this sweet noir ballad a fluid groove and a slow dancing kick. Vocalists Bruce Fisher and Leon Ware additionally gave the liquid “Body Heat” a husky dose of solid machismo and overheated whispering.
The Brothers Johnson – “Strawberry Letter #23” (1977)
When brothers Louis (bass) and George Johnson (guitar) worked on Chaka Khan’s sister Taka Boom’s demos, they surely never realized what would come next when those tracks got to Quincy Jones. He didn’t sign Boom, but brought the brothers to play on his soundtrack for the ABC TV mini-series “Roots,” welcomed them to his touring band, then produced their debut album 1976’s “Look Out For #1.” That lost classic is fun, but 1977’s “Right on Time” is better, especially with the inclusion of the twinkling “Strawberry Letter #23.” Rather than sweeten Shuggie Otis’ near hit, producer Jones keeps “23” rough, complex, and galloping down to its strutting bass — adding magic with heavenly background vocals and a psychedelic swirling guitar solo from jazz great Lee Ritenour.
Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell and Ted Ross – “A Brand New Day” (1978)
Producer Jones and Scarecrow Jackson may have laid the groundwork for unimagined multiplatinum success while working together on Sidney Lumet’s 1978 musical “The Wiz,” but the most cinematic song on its long, funky soundtrack was written by Luther Vandross. Here, in celebratory post-disco mode, Vandross’ epic song-craft and Jones’ lustrous, French horn-filled production gives this yellow brick road song a solid gold lift.
Michael Jackson – “I Can’t Help It” (1979)
Singling out songs from Jones’ brilliant work with Michael Jackson is a thankless task, but here we’ll sidestep the obvious choices. In a fashion similar to the aforementioned “A Brand New Day,” Jones brings in a vocalist-songwriter whose bridges and sighs have a signature feel connected to their author – Stevie Wonder’s subtle complicated jazziness, those rounded chords, and sweet ascension – then lets Michael Jackson go quietly wild on every verse. It’s the slower, breezier side of “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” yet with the same brand of sensual insistence. Jones provides a rubbery synth line, while Michael breaths heavily, squeaks, squeals and hiccups to soul’s delight.
Quincy Jones – “Ai No Corrida” (1981)
Jones’ 1981 solo album, “The Dude,” did a lot — including transforming vocalist James Ingram into a deep throated, sleek soul singing sensation of the 1980s with grand ballads such as “One Hundred Ways” and “Just Once.” But “Ai No Corrdia” reaches into Jones’ initial signatures of stabbing jazz brass and monster Latin percussion – and, this time, with an irresistible melody penned by Chaz Jankel, the Brit who played guitar for Ian Dury and the Blockheads and also co-wrote “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” and “Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick” with Dury.
Michael Jackson – “Billie Jean” (1982)
From the greatest-selling solo artist album of all time, “Thriller” — the album’s Jackson-penned, mid-tempo first single — famously didn’t grab its producer at first, due to its lengthy, anticipatory drum and bass intro. Obviously, it won him over.
Quincy Jones, Ray Charles and Chaka Khan – “I’ll Be Good to You” (1989)
Jones’ “Back on the Block” album of 1989 was meant as a multi-genre look at who Q had been – and was becoming – after decades in the music business, with everyone from Big Daddy Kane to Ella Fitzgerald jamming with their mentor on tracks touched by modern hip-hop and New Jack Swing. Leave it to Jones’ oldest pal Ray Charles – with a delicious assist from Chaka Khan – to mold an outrageously sprightly R&B hit out of a Brothers Johnson-penned track. As a reward for this mixed bag of musicality, “Back on the Block” won the 1991 Grammy Album of the Year award.
Queen Latifah, Nancy Wilson and Töne Löc – “Cool Joe, Mean Joe (Killer Joe)” (1995)
Jones’ 1995 artist album, “Q’s Jook Joint,” has a similar feel to “Back on the Block,” but trades more on the producer’s roots in jazz and bop. What better way to celebrate that return than re-configuring the national anthem of bop, Benny Golson’s “Killer Joe,” into a melody-rich, big band hip hop track, complete with the divine Nancy Wilson, the gruff Töne Löc, and the Queen herself. It’s Q at his most late-in-life masterful.