Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones
by Quincy Jones
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Book Summary Information
Author: Quincy JonesEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-10-08
ISBN: 0767905105
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Broadway
Book Reviews of Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones
Book Review: Q is The Dude!!
Summary: 5 Stars
What an amazing life!! Never again will I say 'I can't do it!' From eating rats, stealing, getting in fights, having a mentally ill mother and generally a hard childhood, Quincy Jones found freedom and flight in music, becoming the genius he is today.
Discoverer of Patti Austin, James Ingram and The Brothers Johnson, he worked with the greats through the years; Dizzie Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Donna Summer to Kool Moe Dee.
He saw all the technological innovations through the ages, from the introduction of stereophonic sound, through moog synthesizers, to digital recordings and the internet. He also moved through all the music styles, from be bop to hip hop.
We learn how Frank Sinatra nicknamed him Q, and a little of the other side of ole blue eyes that hardly gets written about. How close he was to being at the party where the Sharon Tate murder took place. His brain surgeries, his nervous breakdown and recovery. Most of all, we learn what a large heart filled with love he has.
We are also taken behind the scenes of certain monumental recordings; `Off the wall' and `Thriller by Michael Jackson, and `We are the world' by USA for Africa, and the scoring of `The Colour Purple' to mention a few.
There are also chapters written by others who knew him; a childhood friend, some of his children, Ray Charles, two of his ex wives (he is still friends with all his ex wives), and especially his beloved brother Lloyd. Lloyd's final chapter moved me to tears.
There is an extensive discography, as well as list of awards (27 Grammys among them) received and honours given him.
This book is powerful beyond words. A true inspiration!
Summary of Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones
Musician, composer, producer, arranger, and pioneering entrepreneur Quincy Jones has lived large and worked for five decades alongside the superstars of music and entertainment -- including Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Ray Charles, Will Smith, and dozens of others. Q is his glittering and moving life story, told with the style, passion, and no-holds-barred honesty that are his trademarks.Quincy Jones grew up poor on the mean streets of Chicago?s South Side, brushing against the law and feeling the pain of his mother?s descent into madness. But when his father moved the family west to Seattle, he took up the trumpet and was literally saved by music. A prodigy, he played backup for Billie Holiday and toured the world with the Lionel Hampton Band before leaving his teens. Soon, though, he found his true calling, inaugurating a career whose highlights have included arranging albums for Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, and Count Basie; composing the scores of such films as The Pawnbroker, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night, and The Color Purple, and the theme songs for the television shows Ironside, Sanford and Son, and The Cosby Show; producing the bestselling album of all time, Michael Jackson?s Thriller, and the bestselling single ?We Are the World?; and producing and arranging his own highly praised albums, including the Grammy Award?winning Back on the Block, a striking blend of jazz, African, urban, gospel, and hip-hop. His musical achievements, in a career that spans every style of American popular music, have yielded an incredible seventy-seven Grammy nominations, and are matched by his record as a pioneering music executive, film and television producer, tireless social activist, and business entrepreneur?one of the most successful black business figures in America. This string of unbroken triumphs in the entertainment industry has been shadowed by a turbulent personal life, a story he shares with eloquence and candor.
Q is an impressive self-portrait by one of the master makers of American culture, a complex, many-faceted man with far more than his share of talents and an unparalleled vision, as well as some entirely human flaws. It also features vivid testimony from key witnesses to his journey?family, friends, and musical and business associates. His life encompasses an astonishing cast of show business giants, and provides the raw material for one of the great African American success stories of this century.
From the Hardcover edition.
He reached an apogee of fame in the mid-1980s as the producer-arranger of Michael Jackson's blockbuster album Thriller and the charity single "We Are the World," but Quincy Jones has been a force in American music since he was a teenager. He swung hard enough to play with beboppers like Dizzy Gillespie; he studied composition with the legendary Nadia Boulanger; he scored dozens of films and TV shows; he arranged and/or produced albums for everyone from Frank Sinatra to Leslie Gore, and rappers like Melle Mel don't disdain the old man either. Looking back at age 68 in a good-natured autobiography supplemented with brief chapters by such friends as Ray Charles and ex-wife Peggy Lipton, Jones asserts, "I've been driven all my life by a spirit of adventure and a criminal level of optimism." Given his beginnings, growing up poor in Chicago and Seattle with a mentally ill mother lurking in the background, that's quite an achievement. Jones never stood still long enough to let sorrow catch him, and though his treatment of his personal life is standard Hollywood glib ("Though Nastassja [Kinski]'s and my relationship as a couple was not destined to last, she is a great friend"), his prose catches fire when it touches on music: Dinah Washington "could take the melody in her hand, hold it like an egg, crack it open, fry it, let it sizzle, reconstruct it, put the egg back in the box and back in the refrigerator, and you would've still understood every single syllable." His furious energy may have been fueled by personal demons, but his joyous sweep through a half century of American pop convinces you that Jones was right to keep moving: "Nothing is ever wrong if it's going someplace," he asserts. "Music is about ever-changing." --Wendy Smith
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