Quincy Jones Quotes
- Mini Bio
- Name: Quincy Delight Jones
- Born: 14th March 1933, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
- Occupation: Record producer, composer and musician
- Alma mater: Berklee College of Music
- Nickname: Q
- Height: 5' 6½" (1.69 m)
- Movie scores: He has scored the soundtracks to staggering 33 movies including In The Heat of The Night (1967), In Cold Blood (1967), The Italian Job (1969) and They Call Me Mister Tibbs (1970)
- Awards: He has racked up 78 Grammy award nominations of which he won 26 of them
- Arranged songs for: Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, Ray Charles, Peggy Lee and many more
- Trivia: In 1974 he suffered an aneurysm and subsequently had a metal plate surgically implanted in his head. As a consequence of this he regularly sets off metal detectors at airports
"You make your mistakes to learn how to get to the good stuff"
Quincy Jones"Frank Sinatra took me to a whole new planet. I worked with him until he passed away in '98. He left me his ring. I never take it off. Now, when I go to Sicily, I don't need a passport. I just flash my ring"
Quincy Jones"To this day, the music we created together on Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad is played in every corner of the world and the reason for that is because he had it all"
Quincy Jones"Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old shared a little of what he is good at doing"
Quincy Jones"Do what you love, and love what you do. If you approach your endeavors from a place of love, and not fear, you will always be ok"
Quincy Jones"I don't look at the problems that we have as challenges. I look at them as puzzles, and puzzles can be solved"
Quincy Jones"Greatness occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you have peace of mind"
Quincy Jones"Once a task is just begun, never leave until it's done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all"
Quincy Jones"The only justification for looking down on anyone, is that you're going to stop and pick them up"
Quincy Jones"You have to know that your real home is within"
Quincy Jones"Excellence isn't an act, it's a habit"
Quincy Jones"Not one ounce of my self worth depends on your acceptance of me"
Quincy Jones"God gave us two ears and one mouth, because you're supposed to listen twice as much as you talk"
Quincy Jones"When you're over the hill, that's when you pick up speed"
Quincy Jones"If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture"
Quincy Jones"They say coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous"
Quincy Jones"We don't want to make a hunger record in tuxedos"
Quincy Jones"I've met every freak in the business"
Quincy Jones"Check Your Ego at the Door"
Quincy Jones"I'm a serial optimist"
Quincy Jones
Great quotes are not where you find great wisdom. It's where you share this knowledge that counts
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Quincy Jones Biography
Bio By: Michael Joseph Farrelly
In the music business Quincy Jones has seen it all, done it all and achieved so much that he has been touted as one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time.
When Jones set out on his career it was still shy of the mid twentieth century and no one could have imagined what was to come during the next seven decades of music awesomeness. He has awards by the bucket load, scored more than thirty movie soundtracks and has worked with music industry legends by the dozen.
The majority of his movie sound tracks were in the 1960's and 1970's and in the early 1960's this was against all the odds as that period seldom saw black people selected to create the music for movies. His musical collaborations are legendary with orchestras and stars of the magnitude of Count Basie, Frank Sinatra (whom he worked with until Frank's death), Little Richard, Michael Jackson plus many more that have spanned his active seven decades.
Indeed Jones was the instigator during Michael Jackson's most prolific period where he produced the albums Off The Wall (1979), Thriller (1982) and Bad (1987). Quincy used his connections to help conjure up a star studded line up for the American live aid concert and he was also responsible for producing the live aid famine relief song We Are The World in 1985.
Every genre of music has seen Jones involvement and he has been responsible for influencing the fusion of music with his mixes producing musical hybrids evolving from African and Brazilian music into the mediums enjoyed in North America. He was a humble man but never shy when it came to sharing a quote or two, so this is my compilation of 20 of the best Quincy Jones quotes.
Quotes About Quincy Jones
Back in the day the composer Nadia Boulanger said this to Jones who was her then pupil: "Your music can never be more than you are as a human being"
The producer Ken Ehrlich was moved to say: "For most of my life, the name Quincy Jones has represented excellence in nearly every part of the American musical landscape"
Oprah Winfrey was praiseful of Q as she emphasised: "the impact of this impresario - in the broadest and in the most creative sense of the world - as an artist, as a producer, as a composer, as an arranger, as an executive, and humanitarian"
Paul McCartney was magnanimous in his response to some Quincy Jones criticism: "He's totally out of his tree. But the great thing was, he rang me after this. I'd only heard about it and I'd thought, 'I'm not sure it's true.' The joke is, I love Quincy, even after this. He's a crazy motherfucker. But I respect him, he's done a lot of very good things"
