He was the world

When Quincy was young, he almost chose a life of crime, thinking that gangsters made money--better sense and a trumpet in his hand prevailed and he was hooked

I lost my mother when I was 7, I watched her being taken away in a strait jacket to a mental hospital, that’s something you never forget
—so, I said to myself, “I don’t have a mother, I’m going to let music be my mother”
— Quincy Jones 
 
Quincy Jones left us a week ago. It was no surprise that a man whose middle name was “Delight” should have delighted us for many years—as composer, songwriter, arranger, producer, trumpeter and film soundtrack creator, a multi-talented man, a music man across genres, across generations, across geniuses, from George Benson to Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson—a real Renaissance man. When Quincy was young, he almost chose a life of crime, thinking that gangsters made money--better sense and a trumpet in his hand prevailed and he was hooked. 

I remember first hearing of Quincy Jones, dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” at a college social in 1979. MJ created grooves that made even “two left feet” exponents dance. You just got up and bopped regardless.  The song, the opening track of his album, Off the Wall, had a very strong violin section, the quartet of violinists, giving the groove an almost classical overlay. Going through videos, on the day the great man passed,  it amused me no end when Quincy narrated that Michael Jackson wrote him a letter “requesting” him to remove the violins. “They’re coming in the way of my groove”, Michael wrote. “And did you remove them?” the interviewer asked. Quincy was astonished at this question, “Are you kidding me! No way was I removing them, they made the opening of the song so catchy!” The rest is musical history as the song went straight to number one and the record sold over 20 million copies, making it one of the biggest selling albums of all time.

Quincy Jones was a true-blue music producer, a man who could compose himself, but also knew how to get the best out of the talents he was working with—getting their artistry to truly soar, a music coach so to speak, honing talents, heightening their gifts, adding to the gilt, subtracting the flab. And he did it across disco, hip hop, pop, disco, rock, jazz and R & B.

It was a few months ago that Netflix served up a feast—we got an opportunity to watch Quincy at work, at his peak. The channel presented a documentary called The Greatest Night in Pop--shot entirely in one studio, over one night. It documented the making of the song “We Are The World”. In 1985, Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie wrote an anthem to raise funds to fight famine in Africa. They needed the song to be a hit, they needed to gather all the greatest artists in pop, to come under one roof, and they knew only one one man to pull it off and pull it all together--that man was Quincy Jones. The video tracks the recording of the anthem, in a studio in LA--apart from MJ and Ritchie, it was a who’s who of the pop-rock world. Billy Joel , Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper, Diana Ross, Ray Charles, Paul Simon and Tina Turner among a host of others.

Quincy Jones, began the process by placing a sign on the studio door—“Leave your ego outside”—it was a long night, with egos floating in the air, not daring to surface, the energy was infectious but he kept it from flagging. Each line of We Are The World had to be apportioned to an appropriate singer. To watch the man with the legend, the largesse, the listening ability, to lift the singers, to lightly manoeuvre his wand over the orchestra, was magical.
Quincy Jones once famously said, “always leave a little room, for God to walk in the room.” Quincy hasn’t just left the room, he’s left the building. To join God, in that giant recording studio in the sky.

Good night, sir, we the world, bid you goodbye.

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com

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