Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones – John And Mary (1969/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 30:58 minutes | 644 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © A&M

At the time, Body Heat was a breathtaking leap for Quincy Jones, right into the very heart of mainstream commercial soul — and it turned out to be very lucrative, rising to number six on the pop album charts. Jazz per se has been left far behind but the same musical sensibility, the same brilliant production skills, and the same knack for what will appeal to a wider audience are still at work, and the result is a surprisingly pleasing album. Amazingly, Jones still draws a constellation of jazz stars into his studio bands (Herbie Hancock, Frank Rosolino, Hubert Laws, Jerome Richardson, Grady Tate, Bob James), plus soul names like Billy Preston, Bernard Purdie and the soon-to-be-ubiquitous guitarist Wah Wah Watson. The emphasis, though, is first on the honeyed soul vocals from a variety of newcomers, and second on the funky grooves laced with the buzz of now-prized analogue synthesizers and wah-wah guitars. There is one reminder of Jones’ big-band days, a busy electronic retro-fitting of his classic chart of Benny Golson’s “Along Came Betty,” where one can hear Laws blow at some length. Otherwise, to paraphrase Jones himself, if you check your jazz boots at the door, you might enjoy this. – Richard S. Ginell
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Quincy Jones – Sounds… And Stuff Like That! (1978/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 35:48 minutes | 809 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © A&M

With ears dead set on the trends of the moment but still drawing now and then on his jazz past, Quincy Jones came up with another classy-sounding pop album loaded with his ever-growing circle of musician friends. Disco was king in 1978 and Jones bows low with the ebullient dance hit “Stuff Like That” – which is several cuts above the norm for that genre – along with a healthy quota of elegantly produced soul ballads. Yet amidst the pop stuff, Jones still manages to do something fresh and memorable within the jazz sphere with a gorgeous chart of Herbie Hancock’s “Tell Me a Bedtime Story.” Hancock himself sits in impeccably on electric piano, and violinist Harry Lookofsky painstakingly overdubs one of Hancock’s transcribed solos on 15 violins. Despite the cast of hundreds that is now de rigueur for Quincy Jones, the record does not sound over-produced due to the silken engineering and careful deployment of forces.
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Quincy Jones – Newport 1961 (1961/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 40:42 minutes | 435 MB | Genre: Soul
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

“Newport ’61” is a live album by Quincy Jones that was recorded on July 3, 1961 at the Newport Jazz Festival. With trumpeter Joe Newman, altoist Phil Woods, trombonist Curtis Fuller and tenor man Eric Dixon as key soloists, this ensemble could hold its own with most of its contemporaries. Jones’ arrangements were colorful and distinctive, and the musicianship of the orchestra was quite impressive.
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Quincy Jones – Walking In Space (1969/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 34:53 minutes | 1,36 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Verve

Walking in Space is a 1969 studio album by Quincy Jones. The album was recorded for A&M who released the album with a cover photo of Jones taken by Pete Turner. Vocalist Valerie Simpson is featured on the title track, an arrangement of a song from the hit rock musical Hair. “Dead End” is also from Hair and “Killer Joe” features Ray Brown on bass and Grady Tate on drums.
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Quincy Jones – Go West, Man! (Remastered) (1957/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 43:01 minutes | 372 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

There is a bit of mis-information surrounding this album, and I’ve seen more than one inaccurate review, so to clear up a few things first, “Go West Man” is not a big band album and the arrangements on here are not by Quincy Jones. Although there is some good music on here, in some ways, this second album in Quincy Jones’ young career is somewhat of a disappointment. Jones’ first album was a great success and revealed a young big band arranger with some fresh new sounds, so I would imagine his new fans were disappointed to find out that Jones only served as a conductor and producer, not arranger, on his follow-up LP. There are three different mid-sized groups that Jones works with on here, including two groups led by saxophone summits and one group led by a trumpet quartet. All three groups have a piano, bass and drums rhythm section. Each of the three groups is given three songs which leads to nine songs total on the album if you are keeping score at home.
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Quincy Jones – I Dig Dancers! (Remastered) (1960/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 33:18 minutes | 347 MB | Genre: Jazz, Easy Listening
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

I Dig Dancers is an album Quincy Jones that was released by Mercury with performances recorded in Paris and New York City.
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Quincy Jones – Roots: The Saga Of An American Family (1977/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 27:45 minutes | 551 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © A&M

Quincy Jones has been threatening to write a long tone poem sketching the history of black music for decades now, and he has yet to do it. This project, rushed out in the wake of the 1977 TV mini-series Roots, is about as close as he has come. A brief (28 minutes) immaculately-produced and segued suite, Roots quickly traces a timeline from Africa to the Civil War, incorporating ancient and modern African influences (with Letta Mbulu as the featured vocalist), a sea shanty, field hollers, and fiddle tunes, snippets of dialogue from Roots actor Lou Gossett, and some Hollywood-style movie cues. Only a fraction of this music was used in the mini-series; oddly, the most familiar piece of music, the often-repeated “Roots Mural Theme,” is not by Jones, but by film composer Gerald Fried, who wrote most of the TV score. Though some prominent jazzers (Shelly Manne, Victor Feldman, Ernie Watts, Lee Ritenour, Richard Tee, etc.) turn up in the orchestra, there is not a trace of jazz to be heard. This is a timely souvenir of a cultural phenomenon, but merely a curiosity for jazz fans.
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Quincy Jones – Body Heat (1974/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 38:35 minutes | 847 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © A&M

Body Heat is a 1974 album by legendary producer, arranger, and musician. The album features musical contributions from Dave Grusin, Herbie Hancock, Bob James, Hubert Laws, Leon Ware, Minnie Riperton, Max Bennett, Wah Wah Watson and many others.
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Quincy Jones – All that Jazz, Vol. 128: Quincy Jones – “Ghana” (2020 Remaster) (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:12:28 minutes | 602 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Jube Legends

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans over 60 years in the entertainment industry with a record 80 Grammy Award nominations, 28 Grammys, and a Grammy Legend Award in 1992.
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Quincy Jones – This Is How I feel About Jazz (Remastered) (1957/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 40:59 minutes | 340 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

This Is How I Feel About Jazz is the 1957 debut album by Quincy Jones. Jones arranged and conducted three recording sessions during September 1956, each with a different line-up, from a nonet to a fifteen piece big band. Musicians on the album include Art Farmer, Phil Woods, Lucky Thompson, Hank Jones, Paul Chambers, Milt Jackson, Art Pepper, Zoot Sims, and Herbie Mann. The bonus tracks on the CD release include compositions by Jimmy Giuffre, Lennie Niehaus and Charlie Mariano.
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Quincy Jones – Smackwater Jack (1971/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 42:02 minutes | 1,71 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © A&M

Quincy Jones had jazz fans wondering when he released his killer Gula Matari album in 1970. That set, with gorgeous reading of Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” with a lead vocal by none other than Valerie Simpson, pointed quite solidly into the direction Jones was traveling: unabashedly toward pop, but with his own trademark taste, and sophistication at the forefront of his journey. Its follow-up, Smackwater Jack, marked Jones, along with Phil Ramone and Ray Brown in the producer’s chair, and knocked purist jazz fans on their heads with its killer meld of pop tunes, television and film themes, pop vocals, and big-band charts. The personnel list is a who’s- who of jazzers including Monty Alexander, Jim Hall, Pete Christlieb, Joe Beck, Bobby Scott, Ernie Royal, Freddie Hubbard, Jerome Richardson, Ray Brown, Jaki Byard, Toots Thielemans, and many others. But it also hosted the talents of new school players who dug pop and soul, such as Grady Tate, Bob James, Joe Sample, Chuck Rainey, Paul Humphries, Eric Gale, and others. And yes, Simpson was back on this session in an epic reading of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On,'” that featured Carol Kaye and Harry Lookofsky on soulful, psychedelic jazz strings and a smoking harmonica solo by Thielemans. The title cut, of course, is a reading of the Gerry Goffin and Carole King number, done in a taut, funky soul style with Rainey’s bassline popping and bubbling under the entire mix and James’ Rhodes and Thielemans’ harmonica leading the back until the funky breaks by Tate, and some tough street guitar by Arthur Adams host an enormous backing chorus and a “mysterious” uncredited male lead vocal. Other highlights include a rocking version of the television theme from Ironside, and “Hikky-Burr,” the now infamous theme from the Bill Cosby Show with a guest vocal from Bill. The version of Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” is one of the loveliest tracks here, and sets in stone a gorgeous model for the meld of complex jazz harmonics and a lithe pop melody. The album’s final cut is a Jones original that sums up the theme of the entire album. Entitled “Guitar Blues Odyssey: From Roots to Fruits,” it travels the path of Robert Johnson and Skip James through toJimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton with stops along the way at Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, and Grant Green. Guitarists Beck, Hall, and Gale, as well as Freddie Robinson, all do their best mimicking on this lovely, musical, labyrinthine montage that moves back and forth across musical history. It works like a charm with Brown’s upright and Rainey’s Fender (electric) bass work (alternately), and the beatcraft of Tate. This set has provided some key samples for rappers and electronic music producers over the years – and there’s plenty more to steal – but as an album, it is one of Q’s true masterpieces, recorded during an era when he could do no wrong, and when he was expanding not only his musical palette, but ours.
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Quincy Jones – Big Band Bossa Nova (1962/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 33:01 minutes | 1,46 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Verve

Big Band Bossa Nova is a 1962 bossa nova album by American impresario, jazz composer, trumpeter, arranger and record producer Quincy Jones and his band. It features the popular number “Soul Bossa Nova.” The title Big Band Bossa Nova was also used for three other 1962 albums, by Stan Getz, Oscar Castro-Neves and Enoch Light.
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Quincy Jones – In Cold Blood (Original Soundtrack Recording) (1968/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 32:03 minutes | 753 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RCA – Legacy

Trumpet-blasting sideman to the stars. Frank Sinatra’s go-to arranger. Oscar®-winning soundtrack composer. Entertainment-industry mogul. Celebrity activist. Perennial hit-making pop producer. Across a uniquely varied, multidisciplinary career dating back to the early ’50s, Quincy Jones has not only assumed countless roles, he’s set the gold standard for each. In the 60s, the Chicago-born Jones’ bold, brassy arrangements exuded an uncanny mix of cocktail-clinking sophistication and in-your-face swagger, whether they were gussying up Sinatra’s historic set at the Sands, buoying Lesley Gore’s subversively empowering sad-girl anthem “It’s My Party,” or driving Jones’ own “Soul Bossa Nova” (a.k.a. the Austin Powers theme). Just as effortlessly, Jones imbued his score for the racially charged 1967 drama In the Heat of the Night with ominous symphonic soul, tapping into the dark undercurrents of an unsettled America and offering an implicit rumination on the Black experience that would be rendered more vividly through his funky ’70s recordings. (Those louche, smoky grooves, in turn, became the foundation for countless hip-hop classics.) But Jones’ Midas touch had never been more potent than on Michael Jackson’s game-changing 1982 LP, Thriller. Its fusion of taut, post-disco dance grooves, sharp R&B hooks, and rock attitude redefined the sound and scope of the modern pop album and cemented Jones’ status as the link between popular music’s jazzy big-band past and its studio-sculpted, club-hopping future.
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Quincy Jones – At Basin Street East (1961/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 32:00 minutes | 340 MB | Genre: Soul
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

At Basin Street East is a 1961 live album by Billy Eckstine, accompanied by a big band arranged and conducted by Quincy Jones. It was originally released on October 1, 1961, on the EmArcy label, but reissued in 1990 by Polygram. The album was recorded at the Basin Street East nightclub in New York City.
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