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Quincy Jones Interview

Now this is the sh*%...

http://www.vulture.com/2018/02/quincy-jones-in-conversation.html
gareneau
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,444 posts
 

tubegroover, if you reread my post you’ll notice I thought better of what I had said about Jones’ music, and beat the 30 minute clock.

My beef with Jones’ opinion of the early Beatles musicianship is his (and a lot of other people’s) underlying assumption that a more, let’s call it accomplished, musician, will, by virtue of that fact alone, make better music than that of a less accomplished musician. That is a fallacy, just as is being a "trained" singer automatically makes one a better singer than an untrained one. Imagine if the only criteria in judging athletes in The Olympics was in the area of "difficulty of execution". Judging musicians by that criteria alone reduces the making of music to just that---an athletic endeavor.

chazro's avatar
chazro
635 posts
 
Q stopped being relevant to me when he 4ever linked himself at the hip to MJ.  This interview read like the ramblings of a stoned out old goober!
frogman
7,358 posts
 
Great comments by bdp24. I agree, except that I think the opinion of someone who has been such a force in the music INDUSTRY is relevant if only to explain some of the seemingly unexplainable. What I think is being missed here, and is obvious to me from his comments, is the reality of the corrupting power of that kind of success and wealth and of being part of the ENTERTAINMENT elite. It takes a special personality to remain grounded and not lose touch with the basics of what it is to be an artist. In most respects what happens in the upper echelons of the pop music world is no different from what happens in Hollywood; it is a breeding ground for overblown egos and self-aggrandizement. For me the most interesting thing in his comments was his focus on and criticisms of the musicianship of The Beatles, Hendrix and others. Q is an extremely talented producer/arranger without a doubt, but he was a very mediocre section trumpet player who found his niche as an orchestrator while in Basie’s band. I know and have known so many orchestrators who when hanging out with the players on a session or rehearsal like nothing more than to “talk shop” with the musicians who play whatever their own instrument was when they were getting started in the business. Deep inside some of them are frustrated instrumentalists.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,444 posts
 
Great comments everyone. Well, except czarivey; The "Beatles do suck"? No they don't, but you do. Wolf is absolutely correct---Rubber Soul and Revolver in particular contain music as fine as anyone in Pop has ever made.
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,232 posts
 
Hi Frogman,
As always I appreciate your insight. Looking for clarification, are you saying that you cannot critique the musicianship of others unless you yourself were a great musician yourself? Jones certainly wasn’t a trumpeter anywhere near his contemporaries, Miles, Brownie Chet, or Kenny Dorham. However he’d be able to recognize talent (or lack of) in other musicians. He had lifelong and enormous exposure to many musicians across a hugh spectrum.

As a producer and arranger he’d be analogous to a highly successful coach/manager who was but a marginal player. Bill Parcels or John Madden (NFL) or say Phil Jackson (NBA). No exceptional talent as players themselves but clearly could identify the talent level of players after watching them perform. Just as Q. Jones could easily sort out the really good musicians upon hearing them play..
Charles
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