Quincy Jones and the Art of the Possible

A listicle (Sorry!)

Below: An (inevitably incomplete) inventory of the musical contributions of Quincy Jones, the composer, arranger and recording artist who died this week at age 91. For narrative accounts of his life and his signal accomplishments, check out masterful appreciations by Ben Ratliff in the New York Times, or the recollections of stars interviewed by the BBC.

Jones’ work was centered on a foundational understanding of the roots and branches of American music – blues, gospel, jazz, soul, hip-hop and on and on. He created contexts that amplified the potency of each genre individually, and then discovered new potency in combination. He is quite possibly the last figure whose path intersected with practitioners working at the most creative levels of each of those forms. See: Count Basie, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Michael Jackson.

In those cases and many others, his presence on a project made that project more impactful. That was not an accident: As Jones wrote in his memoir Q, early encounters with towering figures like Charles taught him how to cultivate an atmosphere of open collaboration in the studio. Arguably the most extreme example of that is the 1985 single “We Are the World,” a massive feat of coordination that Jones produced.

An omnivorous listener, Jones threaded disparate musical realms together into a sound language that stands as completely his own, and prevails regardless of what role he’s playing. He had a sound as a jazz trumpet player. He had a sound as a big-band arranger. He had a sound as a composer. He had a sound when he scored films. He had a sound as a producer. He even had a sound as a record executive (he was instrumental in signing Shirley Horn to Mercury Records).

And….Jones didn’t follow recipes when exploring new sounds.

Thanks to the Austin Powers movies, we now hear his 1962 “Soul Bossa Nova,” from the Big Band Bossa Nova LP, as throwback kitsch. But that record landed during the time when American enchantment with the Brazilian style was beginning to heat up – two years ahead of Getz/Gilberto – and it created a breezy, irreverent conversation between previously siloed styles. Big Band Bossa Nova probably deserves more credit than it gets for accelerating the development of soul-jazz, and for showing American musicians specific and deeply musical ways to integrate ideas from distant realms.

In many contexts, we pick up on Jones’ sonic language because of his keen sense of musical proportion. He knew how to captivate the listener with the lead-vocal candy in the foreground, and then how to guide that listener into the vast large-canvas soundscapes behind it, via breakdowns or thrilling string interludes.

And let’s give it up for the very fact that Jones wrote interludes – magical ones that gave the ear time to process the vocal melodies. (Memo to any remaining record executives with fulltime jobs: study the instrumental passages on the hits Jones produced, which teach that success doesn’t depend exclusively on endlessly repeated hooks). He was an expert at conjuring dramatic string surges, and carefully articulated soli sections for brass or saxophones on his big band charts (see “Along Came Betty”).

Jones always had his Basie boots on. He used the same arranging ideas on many things he produced, creating an influential through-line that’s remarkable to follow across his decades of activity. Compare the charts he wrote for the 1964 Sinatra/Basie collaboration It Might As Well Be Swing, which includes the iconic “Fly Me To The Moon,” with the instrumental touches on Jackson’s Off The Wall or Thriller or Bad with his scores for The Lost Man or The Pawnbroker. The settings and the grooves are very different, but the projects share the smooth, suave syncopations in the horn writing, as well as the dissonance-courting scoring techniques Jones used to conjure sudden, riveting moments of tension and release.

Jones understood the power of subtle gestures. On his pop productions, the carefully layered percussion tracks, which expanded the lexicon with Afro-Cuban and Brazilian touches, don’t scream at you. Instead, they enhance the overall sway, one bell or conga slap at a time. That rhythmically scratchy cabasa that enters on beat one of measure 5 of “Billie Jean” might not even register these days, but it’s integral to the vibe even before Jackson imitates it.

Jones made records that simply feel good. His blues (check any of his contributions to Charles’ Genius Plus Soul Equals Jazz) had sass and smack. His ballads (check James Ingram singing “One Hundred Ways” from Jones’ 1981 smash The Dude) were unabashedly sensual. With his score for the breakthrough TV series Roots, he transformed field chants into poignant vehicles for truth-telling. His productions might have grown more extravagant as technology evolved, but he always managed to serve the songs, never letting anything interrupt the direct transmission of emotion.