Who could go on the news and call The Beatles 'the worst musical acts in the world'? Perhaps the only person in the world who could say such a thing without fear of incurring a storm of outrage was Quincy Jones.
Michael Jackson (left) and Quincy Jones at the 1994 Grammy Awards - Photo: PEOPLE
For those who don't know who Quincy Jones is, the 2018 biopic his two children made, which won Best Music Film at the 2019 Grammys, encapsulates his illustrious career in its closing credits:
"Over 2,900 recorded songs, over 300 recorded albums, music for over 51 films and television series, composition of over 1,000 pieces, Grammy nominations 79 times and wins 28 times...".
Who else but Quincy Jones?
Who is behind the synthesizer riff that blends with the mysterious, pounding bass like the footsteps of darkness closing in on the victim in the classic song Smooth Criminal that made Michael Jackson the king of pop?
Who was it that introduced the lurking bassline to Billie Jean (also by Michael Jackson) and simultaneously broke all the genre boundaries of R&B, funk, disco, pop? Quincy Jones.
Who is the conductor for the "choir" as sparkling as the Milky Way with Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Cyndie Lauper... to join in the melody connecting the world together, We Are the World - a peak pop culture moment, where music shines like a god descending to earth to save humanity?
Who else but Quincy Jones?
Because only Quincy Jones has the ability to call so many names together. It would not be wrong to say that Quincy Jones is like a friend, a big brother to everyone.
He worked for 70 years.
In those 70 years, the music industry has changed countless times: When Jones was in his 20s, big bands ruled the jazz scene; the 1960s brought the rise of soul and rock; the 1970s and 1980s brought the flamboyant, bouncy disco; and then hip hop took over.
But it seems to Jones that music is music and there is nothing new or old about it.
In 1963, just as British rock 'n' roll artists were taking America by storm, Quincy Jones put pop into jazz standards, helping jazz pianist Count Basie make the album This Time by Basie, bringing a genre of jazz that had seemed to be in decline back into the musical spotlight.
Then, together with soul queen Aretha Franklin, he transformed soul into something completely different in Aretha Now, no longer relying solely on the 12-bar structure of Blues but adding classical elements such as string orchestras, thereby expanding the boundaries of this music genre.
Yet when he worked with Michael Jackson on Off The Wall, one of the most important albums of the 20th century, he once again dressed up soul, only with trendy sounds like disco, like funk.
He jazzified pop music and popified jazz. But many people populate complex music and inadvertently trivialize it.
Quincy Jones' greatness lies in the fact that he popularized the genre without trivializing it. He just opened up other possibilities for music.
Quincy Jones
I will use it all up
In Frank Sinatra's early years, Sinatra met Jones, who was still young, and it was Jones's fiery energy that gave Sinatra a timeless, fresh, upbeat rendition of Fly Me To The Moon.
That arrangement made Sinatra's voice the first song played on the Moon when Apollo 11 landed on the celestial body in 1969.
In the documentary Quincy , Jones calculated: "A human being only lives 26,000 days. And I'll tell you what, I'm going to use those days up to the point where they're gone. If I live to be 80, that's 29,000 days. I'm going to use them up to the point where they're gone."
Quincy Jones died last week at the age of 91. He had over 33,000 days, and in the 2020s, he was still accepting music videos from new-generation rap stars like Travis Scott. He certainly lived up to his promise, living 33,000 days without missing a single day.
Looking at those staggering numbers, it's clear that Quincy Jones is not only one of the greatest music producers, he's a giant, literally.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/quincy-jones-va-33-000-ngay-dung-den-rach-buom-cuoc-song-20241110090435931.htm
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