{"id":3883,"date":"2012-07-29T22:17:29","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T05:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=3883"},"modified":"2012-07-29T22:17:29","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T05:17:29","slug":"recent-listening-in-brief-quincy-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2012\/07\/recent-listening-in-brief-quincy-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Listening In Brief: Quincy Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Quincy Jones ABC\/Mercury Big Band Jazz Sessions<\/a> (Mosaic)<\/p>\n

Preparing for my public conversation with Quincy Jones (two items down), I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been reading his 2001 autobiography<\/a>, chatting with people he knows and listening to his music. The inventiveness, sparkle and audacity of \"\"<\/a>Jones\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 arrangements in the 1950s and early \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc60s gave his music freshness that was notable when he was in his twenties. Now that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nearing 80, these works of his youth are still among the most vital big band recordings of an era in which Count Basie, Woody Herman, Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton were going strong. Jones\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 inventive scoring of his compositions, including \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stockholm Sweetnin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Midnight Sun Will Never Set\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hard Sock Dance,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is matched by his settings of standard songs, and pieces by contemporaries like Horace Silver, Benny Golson, Ernie Wilkins, Bobby Timmons and Bill Potts. <\/p>\n

As for execution, Jones put together a band whose various versions had some of the best players of the day, among them Clark Terry, Zoot Sims, Freddie Hubbard, Phil Woods, Budd Johnson, \u00c3\u2026ke Persson, Buddy Catlett, Urbie Green, Julius Watkins, Les Spann and Patti Bown. Stranded in Europe by the failure of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Free And Easy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a stage production they were a part of, his musicians sacrificed to stay together and tour the continent, reflecting their loyalty to Jones, his music and each other. When the band is at its best in these five CDs—which is most of the time— it is easy to hear what inspired that spirit. Brian Priestley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s booklet notes are a valuable telling of the band\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story. <\/p>\n

\nJones moved from leading a big band into wide success in scoring for film and television and in pop music production. This set is a reminder of how much he accomplished when he concentrated on jazz. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Quincy Jones ABC\/Mercury Big Band Jazz Sessions (Mosaic) Preparing for my public conversation with Quincy Jones (two items down), I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been reading his 2001 autobiography, chatting with people he knows and listening to his music. The inventiveness, sparkle and audacity of Jones\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 arrangements in the 1950s and early \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc60s gave his music freshness that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}