Product Description

Musician, composer, producer, arranger, and pioneering entrepreneur Quincy Jones has lived large and worked for five decades alongside the superstars of music and entertainment -- including Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Ray Charles, Will Smith, and dozens of others. Q is his glittering and moving life story, told with the style, passion, and no-holds-barred honesty that are his trademarks.

Quincy Jones grew up poor on the mean streets of Chicago’s South Side, brushing against the law and feeling the pain of his mother’s descent into madness. But when his father moved the family west to Seattle, he took up the trumpet and was literally saved by music. A prodigy, he played backup for Billie Holiday and toured the world with the Lionel Hampton Band before leaving his teens. Soon, though, he found his true calling, inaugurating a career whose highlights have included arranging albums for Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, and Count Basie; composing the scores of such films as The Pawnbroker, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night, and The Color Purple, and the theme songs for the television shows Ironside, Sanford and Son, and The Cosby Show; producing the bestselling album of all time, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and the bestselling single “We Are the World”; and producing and arranging his own highly praised albums, including the Grammy Award—winning Back on the Block, a striking blend of jazz, African, urban, gospel, and hip-hop. His musical achievements, in a career that spans every style of American popular music, have yielded an incredible seventy-seven Grammy nominations, and are matched by his record as a pioneering music executive, film and television producer, tireless social activist, and business entrepreneur–one of the most successful black business figures in America. This string of unbroken triumphs in the entertainment industry has been shadowed by a turbulent personal life, a story he shares with eloquence and candor.

Q is an impressive self-portrait by one of the master makers of American culture, a complex, many-faceted man with far more than his share of talents and an unparalleled vision, as well as some entirely human flaws. It also features vivid testimony from key witnesses to his journey–family, friends, and musical and business associates. His life encompasses an astonishing cast of show business giants, and provides the raw material for one of the great African American success stories of this century.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #276171 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-08
• Released on: 2002-10-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From Amazon.com
He reached an apogee of fame in the mid-1980s as the producer-arranger of Michael Jackson's blockbuster album Thriller and the charity single "We Are the World," but Quincy Jones has been a force in American music since he was a teenager. He swung hard enough to play with beboppers like Dizzy Gillespie; he studied composition with the legendary Nadia Boulanger; he scored dozens of films and TV shows; he arranged and/or produced albums for everyone from Frank Sinatra to Leslie Gore, and rappers like Melle Mel don't disdain the old man either. Looking back at age 68 in a good-natured autobiography supplemented with brief chapters by such friends as Ray Charles and ex-wife Peggy Lipton, Jones asserts, "I've been driven all my life by a spirit of adventure and a criminal level of optimism." Given his beginnings, growing up poor in Chicago and Seattle with a mentally ill mother lurking in the background, that's quite an achievement. Jones never stood still long enough to let sorrow catch him, and though his treatment of his personal life is standard Hollywood glib ("Though Nastassja [Kinski]'s and my relationship as a couple was not destined to last, she is a great friend"), his prose catches fire when it touches on music: Dinah Washington "could take the melody in her hand, hold it like an egg, crack it open, fry it, let it sizzle, reconstruct it, put the egg back in the box and back in the refrigerator, and you would've still understood every single syllable." His furious energy may have been fueled by personal demons, but his joyous sweep through a half century of American pop convinces you that Jones was right to keep moving: "Nothing is ever wrong if it's going someplace," he asserts. "Music is about ever-changing." --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly
With some chapters written by Jones, and others by his family and friends (Ray Charles and Peggy Lipton, to name a few), this (auto)biography full of behind-the-scenes anecdotes has an improvisational feel that suits its subject: a jazz musician and superstar composer. Jones came from a hardscrabble background split between Seattle and Chicago when he was still a boy, his schizophrenic mother was placed in a mental hospital for a time, and he was raised by his father and a stepmother. Jones discovered his talent for music early on, and hit the road with Lionel Hampton's jazz band when he was still a teenager. Hampton is just one of the musical greats who makes an appearance Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington and Ray Charles are others. Jones scored his greatest musical successes during the 1970s and '80s (during which years he composed film scores and Michael Jackson's albums), but the strength of the book comes early on, when he describes the joy of his discovery of music, his early friendship with Charles and his struggles and joys as a jazz trumpeter on the road. "When I played music, my nightmares ended. My family problems disappeared." But to Jones's credit, he doesn't hold back his narrative when those problems caught up with him in the 1980s and he suffered a mental breakdown. With the help of his friends, Jones has composed a life story that gives much more than the typical celebrity memoir. (Oct.)Forecast: This title will appeal to many, including fans buying the CD boxed set, Q: The Music of Quincy Jones.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Jones has been a celebrated jazz trumpeter, band leader, arranger, composer, producer, and business mogul. Now he can add writer to his r sum . His powerful, cinematic recollections range from his mother's mental illness, a rough childhood in Chicago, and a musical epiphany in Seattle to working with Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, and Frank Sinatra, leading his own band through a ramshackle tour of Europe, becoming a successful writer of motion picture and television music, producing two of the biggest-selling records of all time (Michael Jackson's Thriller and the "We Are the World" charity single), and surviving two brain operations and a mental breakdown. Jones's snapshots of these events alternate with revealing sections written by his brother, ex-wives, children, and close friends (alas, no Jacko). Though gimmicky in theory, these "witness" chapters actually complement and deepen Jones's firsthand remembrances. Most problematic are the tiresome chapters devoted to his love life (he's fathered seven children by five different women) and the unfocused nature of the book's second half. These flaws, though substantial, are outweighed by the book's strengths. Recommended for most collections.
- Lloyd Jansen, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., CA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

His voice is mesmerizing!
I just bought the audiotape version of Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones. I am only one cassette 3 (out of 4), but I highly recommend it!!! First off, listening to Quincy is like listening to music itself . . . his voice has a melodious pitch and is just infectious! Also, the audiotape (like the text version) features input from family members and friends. Some are famous (like Ray Charles) and others are not (family friends, former wives, etc.). Anyways, hearing their perspective on the same events really adds a lot of flavor to the story . . . and what a story it is! I swear, listening to his life is like listening to a history of 20th century America. He talks about his own experiences with segregation and discrimination as well as broader themes like poverty, mental illness, romance, and spirituality. It's also fascinating to hear behind-the-scenes stories of his close interactions with such musical greats as Lionel Parker, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, etc., etc. Overall, this is an autobiography that no one shoudl miss!!!

Just a Dynamic Personality and Life, Great Book
This is a good story and an entertaining read. Once you start this book you cannot put it down.

Here is the story of a modern African American Horatio Alger/talented artist. As a kid he was so poor he had to eat - can I say it - fried rats. His mother was sent to a terrible mental hospital and his father moved to Washington State with the children and started a new family - with a second wife and her problems in dealing with himself and his brother. He then describes how he discovered his love of music and where that led.

From there his career starts a slow but successful upward path, up through the clubs on to Europe, back to America where he reaches the top. All quite breathtaking.

As is common with many successful people, he overcomes adversity and deals with his own inner demons.

A fascinating tale.

The book includes many references to fellow artists and a nice selection of photographs.

Jack in Toronto

Not just a Count Basie Jones
I came of age in disco but cut my teeth on Count Basie and Duke Ellington and am blessed that not a week goes by that Basie does not "swing" me. Quincy was given a gift and he accepted that gift and touches every corner of the world with it. He touches the world through his music, his arrangements and his ability to love and hold on to others. He used that gift to light corners and to leave a legacy that will hold us in this world and in beyond. Q was able to put a little of his "gift" between two covers and to allow we readers to take a little sip. For that I am grateful.