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a brief history
Quincy
Delight Jones, Jr. was born on March
14, 1933 on Chicago’s South Side. He played trumpet with
Ray Charles and bandleader, Lionel Hampton, which led to work
as an arranger.
Jones
settled in New York where, throughout the 50's, he wrote charts
for Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie,
Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington, Cannonball Adderley and
Ray Charles.
After
several years on the road where he financed his own band,
only to end up in huge debt, Jones moved back to New York
after Irving Green hired him as Mercury Records Music Director.
In 1963 he was named V.P., the first African American to hold
such a position in a white-owned company.
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John's memories
I
first met Quincy Jones in 1963 when
Dave White and I were approached by Mercury Records. They
liked our music and wanted to sign us. In a meeting with Quincy
Jones, Irving Green, Shelby Singleton and Irwin
Steinberg, we played for them a new song we had been working
on called “You Don’t Own Me.” They flipped
over it. We left that day feeling pretty good!
About a month or so later, we met Lesley Gore and played “You
Don’t Own Me” to her. She loved it and brought it
to Quincy, who was looking for new material for her and agreed
to put it in the album. On the day of the recording, Dave
and I walked in during rehearsals and found the sound was
different than we had envisioned it. Quincy sent us onto the
floor to work with arranger, Claus Ogermann. After it was
finished, Quincy asked everyone in the studio to write on
a piece of paper which song on the album they thought would
be a hit. Everyone wrote “You Don’t Own Me.”
That was one of the great moments of my life.*
*Although Quincy
Jones was not born in Philly and never lived
there, he was an important part of my career with Lesley Gore,
and it is with this in mind that I include him on my Philly
website.
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what happened next?
Quincy
Jones began writing motion picture scores, and
with the success of his first score, The Pawnbroker, he moved
to Los Angeles, where he was in constant demand as a composer.
He would write over 33 successful film scores as well as TV
theme music for Ironside, Sanford and Son and The Bill Cosby
Show.
Quincy
Jones' career spans over 50 years. He is the
most nominated Grammy artist of all time. He has composed
over 50 motion picture and television scores, and earned international
acclaim as producer of the historic “We Are The World”
single. He also produced the best selling album of all time,
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
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