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Cinematic Soul: The Soundtracks of Quincy Jones
By Michael A.
Gonzales
Premiering in 1972,
Sanford and Son was an every Friday night at
eight o'clock event in my Harlem household. "What
channel does it come on again?" my grandmother would ask
every week and every week I'd turn the television to
channel four and patiently wait for the cool-ass intro
music to kick in. While most program themes had lyrics,
it was only fitting that a funky show like Sanford had a
juke-joint instrumental to introduce this bugged junk
man and his son.
Yet, being a nine year old music buff who bought
countless 45s from Freddy's Record Shack on Broadway and
read religiously the Soul Brothers Top 20 in Jet
magazine, I began noticing Quincy Jones' name on several
television shows including
Ironside and
The Bill Cosby Show, which featured the wild out
track "Hikky-Burr."
Although I had no idea who he was, I knew that he was
the man.
To this day, the musical legacy of seventy-seven year
old Quincy Delight Jones Jr. looms large over the
landscape of popular culture. While our grandparents
might remember him as the cool cat who once swung with
Sinatra and Count Basie (released in 1964,
It Might as Well Be Swing is a champagne music
classic), most eighties babies will forever associate
him with the post-disco blare of Michael Jackson’s
mega-monster
Thriller in 1982.
Yet, that collaboration might never have happened if the
two had not originally worked together on the soundtrack
for
The Wiz, the wretched 1978 remake of
The Wizard of Oz. Directed by the king of New
York City cinema
Sidney Lumet, who once described the film as urban
fantasy (a genre his considerable talents were ill
suited for after the brilliant social realism of
Serpico,
Network and
Dog Day Afternoon) the picture, was a visual
failure.
Though the much-maligned movie was almost made without
Quincy’s help, who explained bluntly in his 2001
autobiography Q, “I just wasn’t feeling the
songs,” he still stepped up to the plate. “I did it
because Sidney Lumet, who had given me my first U.S.
film-scoring break on
The Pawnbroker, plus five more films, asked me
to do it. I felt like I owed him more than one; I owed
him a lot.”
Like a post-bop Martin Luther King with a conductor’s
baton and complex arrangements, Quincy Jones was a
pioneer who helped pave the way for other Negro
musicians in that so-called Tinseltown. “Film has never
been a Black friendly industry,” says director Nelson
George, whose first feature
Life Support was produced for HBO. “But, Quincy
fought and charmed his way through to become Hollywood
royalty.”
Though he would go on to create other great scores like
In Cold Blood (his first Academy Award
nomination) and
In the Heat of the Night, it was
The Pawnbroker that made it all possible.”
Although Duke Ellington had contributed the soaring
soundtrack to Otto Preminger's 1959 film,
Anatomy of a Murder, helping to define the
jazz-influenced film music in same way as Henry Mancini
and Elmer Bernstein, it still took Quincy to take the
art form to the next level.
Beginning his professional career as a be-bop trumpet
player in 1947, Quincy had worked with Ray Charles, got
scammed by Charlie Parker and opened for Nat King Cole
in Europe. Later, as vice-president of A&R at Mercury
Records, he signed Lesley (“It’s My Party”) Gore.
However, once given the chance he never looked back. As
critic Philip Brophy wrote in a 1997 Wire
magazine article, Jones became “a key-yet ignored-figure
in wrenching the film score from its Wagnerian cave and
slamming it down in the midst of cross-town traffic.”
The Pawnbroker was recorded in 1964 at A&R
Studios in Manhattan over the period of two days.
Quincy’s old roommate, friend, engineer and studio owner
Phil Ramone (who later produced classic sides for Billy
Joel and Paul Simon) remembers those sessions well.
“Quincy stayed up days and nights for weeks writing
those songs,” says Ramone via telephone. “Things were
just magical. Man, that studio was so small we used to
call in our basement in the sky. Q’s superstar buddies
would come in to play two solos and be out. We had guys
piled up in the hallway, while others would be in Jim
and Andy’s, the bar downstairs; I had an intercom
hooked-up, and I would call down whenever I needed
somebody.”
Two years earlier, Jones and Ramone recorded the
whimsical “Soul Bossa Nova” in the same studio.
Popularly known today as the “Theme to Austin Powers,”
which featured a Roland Kirk flute solo, it was obvious
that everybody loved working with Q. Lalo Schifrin, who
would later compose the famed
Mission Impossible theme, played piano on that
session.
“It was like a juke joint up 112 West 48th, but it was
home to him,” Phil Ramone remembers. “Nobody ever said
no to Quincy; if he called, you were there.” With a
Who’s Who of cool cats that
Pawnbroker director
Sidney Lumet likened to “Esquire’s All-Star Jazz
Band,” the line-up included
Dizzy Gillespie,
Elvin Jones on drums,
John Faddis on trumpet,
George Duvivier on bass and countless others.
“The main titles use of vibes, celeste harpsichord and
harp tantalizingly cast semi-jazz clusters against a
monophonic semi-blues line played by thickened strings,”
critic Philip Brophy observes. “It’s like hearing
Ellington and George Gershwin simultaneously. It’s black
and it’s jazz and all the space between.”
Despite the fact that Lumet had first approached John
Cage and Gil Evans, he was more than pleased with
Quincy’s efforts, which
Jazz Improv magazine described as “a lush,
string-laden mood pieces, interspersed with frantic jazz
vamps.” In addition, Lumet was also impressed that Q.
had studied under famed French composer and music
educator Nadia Boulanger—who had also taught Aaron
Copland, Virgil Thomson, and Burt Bacharach.
“She used to tell me back in France—and it took me years
to accept it—that you only have real freedom when you
set boundaries and parameters,” Quincy wrote in his bio.
“When you have total freedom, you automatically create
chaos. As a jazz artist, this was hard to swallow until
I had to score films on a deadline.”
“That soundtrack
heavily influenced the work I did on (director Craig
Brewer’s neo-exploitation gem)
Black Snake Moan,” says Bomar, who also scored
Hustle & Flow for the same director. In 2003
Bomar was musical director for a segment of Martin
Scorsese's PBS series
The Blues.
“Jones’ mixture of jazz, blues, country and pop was
amazing. Quincy not only did the score, he did all the
songs you hear on the radio and jukebox; all the music
sounds like it comes from that particular world. Quincy
also used vocals in a very original way; without a
doubt, the Ray Charles sung title track is one of my
favorite songs.” In addition to Charles, the Afroed
maestro also collaborated with singers Donny Hathaway (Come
Back Charleston Blue),
Shirley Horn (For Love Of Ivy), Sarah Vaughan
(Cactus
Flower Theme),
Johnny Mathis (Mirage) and Diana Ross (The
Wiz).
Still, like Los Angeles based crime writer Gary Phillips
and composer David Holmes (Out
of Sight), many of Quincy’s fans prefer the
Playboy chill of his caper movie scores.
Mastermixing the sonic swagger of synthesizers with more
traditional instrumentation, the eletro-fusion heard on
the groovy
The Italian Job (1969),
The Anderson Tapes (1971), $ (1971) and The
Hot Rock (1972) process a neo-noir delirium that
still resonates with movie lovers and hip-hop crate
diggers.
The track “Snow Creatures” from $ has been sampled by
Gang Starr (“Alongwaytogo”) and Common “Tricks Up My
Sleeve,” while The Hot Rock theme was lifted by
both Jurassic 5 (“Improvise”) and Eminem (“Like Toy
Soldiers”). “I like to listening to The Anderson
Tapes or The Lost Man (1969) soundtrack when
I just driving around,” explains Gary Phillips, whose
crime novels include Bangers (2003) and DC
Comics/Vertigo graphic novel Cowboys. “There is a
great sense of pacing and rhythm in that music that just
gets my creative juices flowing. For the crime and
mystery stuff that I write, that music just takes me
there. Quincy not only reflected the feel of those
movies, but those soundtracks also captured the time
period perfectly.”
While Quincy Jones has not done a full-length film score
since teaming with Steven Spielberg on the majestic 1985
The Color Purple soundtrack (for which he
received his eighth Academy Award nomination), his movie
music is still as magical as it is distinctive.
“If you are putting together a compilation of great film
music from the second half of the 20th century music,
there is a good chance you will be using something Jones
composed,” says writer/filmmaker David Walker, former
publisher of defunct zine BadAzz Mofo. “More than
anything else, Quincy Jones brought a sense of soul to
film scores.”
Writer's Note: The Anderson
Tapes is perhaps one of the best heist films ever
made and Jones' soundtrack is the groovy foundation of
many scores to come; if you don't believe me, just ask
David Holmes.
a different version of
this story was first published in Stop Smiling,
Issue 32: Hollywood Lost & Found
(c) Michael A. Gonzales
14 May 2010
Source:
BlackadelicPop
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Even
after over 35 years,
Sanford & Son is still the
funniest show ever. Based on the British
sitcom, Steptoe and Son (featuring Wilford
Brambell best known to Americans as Paul
McCartney's grandfather in A Hard Days
Night),a show about a cantankerous junk
dealer and his long suffering son who was
his business partner. Television producer
Norman Lear who had a hit with
All In The Family (based on another
British sitcom Til Death Us Do Part),
bought the American rights to Steptoe then
changed the format and lead characters to
African American featuring bawdy comedian
Redd Foxx as Fred Sanford and Demond Wilson
as the son, Lamont.
Although the first season lacks such
memorable characters such as Grady and Aunt
Esther (who would make their debut in the
following seasons), the chemistry between
Foxx and Wilson is undeniable magic. |
The funniest episodes of the
season (many were based on
Steptoe episodes were “We Were
Robbed,” “Here Comes The Bride,”
“There Goes The Bride,” and “A
Matter Of Life” or “Breathe”
(the scene with Fred entering
the set with a surgical mask is
priceless). . . . The first four
seasons were undeniably the
best. The show was plagued later
by ego trips, salary disputes,
and Foxx's walkout. Even after
Foxx's return, weak writing and
bufoonery lost veiwers. Even
with its erratic history, S&S
first four seasons was the
greatest African-American
television comedy, if not
overall.—Dean
M. Dent
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Poem: Fireman's
Ball
|
Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 27 May 2010
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