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- Sunday Music: Quincy Jones Quotes
There’s a stretch, in David Marchese’s February, 2018 Vulture interview with Quincy Jones, where he’s talking about seriousness in music.
I’m using that word, seriousness, to mean an artist is aware of the past as they are about the future. Now, on one hand, a person who is perfectly present might be aware of neither, but in a medium where you have to learn your craft, either by spending hours on an instrument in a woodshed, or hours on a computer tapping away on keys to control your software, you’re not creating in a vacuum.
How aware you are of the present you occupy matters.
Read these snippets from Quincy (Marchese is bold) and then I’ll try to hone in on my point:
Do you hear the spirit of jazz in pop today?
No. People gave it up to chase money. When you go after Cîroc vodka and Phat Farm and all that shit, God walks out of the room. I have never in my life made music for money or fame. Not even Thriller. No way. God walks out of the room when you’re thinking about money. You could spend a million dollars on a piano part and it won’t make you a million dollars back. That’s just not how it works.
Is there innovation happening in modern pop music?
Hell no. It’s just loops, beats, rhymes and hooks. What is there for me to learn from that? There ain’t no fucking songs. The song is the power; the singer is the messenger. The greatest singer in the world cannot save a bad song. I learned that 50 years ago, and it’s the single greatest lesson I ever learned as a producer. If you don’t have a great song, it doesn’t matter what else you put around it.
What was your greatest musical innovation?
Everything I’ve done.
Everything you’ve done was innovative?
Everything was something to be proud of — absolutely. It’s been an amazing contrast of genres. Since I was very young, I’ve played all kinds of music: bar mitzvah music, Sousa marches, strip-club music, jazz, pop. Everything. I didn’t have to learn a thing to do Michael Jackson.
What would account for the songs being less good than they used to be?
The mentality of the people making the music. Producers now are ignoring all the musical principles of the previous generations. It’s a joke. That’s not the way it works: You’re supposed to use everything from the past. If you know where you come from, it’s easier to get where you’re going. You need to understand music to touch people and become the soundtrack to their lives. Can I tell you one of the greatest moments in my life?
Of course.
It was the first time they celebrated Dr. King’s birthday in Washington, D.C., and Stevie Wonder was in charge and asked me to be musical director. After the performance, we went to a reception, and three ladies came over: The older lady had Sinatra at the Sands, I arranged that; her daughter had my album The Dude; and then that lady’s daughter had Thriller. Three generations of women said those were their favorite records. That touched me so much.
Art is created in the present.
The motivation for the creation can be commercial. It can be for sponsorships or whatever value the creator is trying to extract. But that art is limited in its power, by its intentions.
Art is a medium of connection.
If the motivation for the creation is connection, it’s focused on the humanity of the idea being expressed, and the humans in the audience who will be moved by it.
The diversity of connections, especially across ages, genres, and maybe even cultures, is a marker of it’s success.
The commercial bit? Yes, it matters. Money makes the world go ‘round, and it’s not like Jones didn’t make a couple of bucks off Thriller, BUT.
Quincy Jones was a serious m***********.
Quincy Jones didn’t make his career just for the commercial success, he made it to make the art he wanted to make, and we should celebrate those accomplishments.
Quincy doing his homework, and take this in as a study of looking backwards and forwards at the same time:
How about this arrangement?
Or how cool can you get here:
Or stretched out:
Or tuck in, the guy could look everywhere, all at once: