McBride, one of jazz’s most important musicians and personalities, reflects on the musical and social genius of the late American icon. “The cat studied people the same way he studied notes,” he says.
“There are certain people in the world who are so omnipresent you can’t really remember how you discovered them,” the bassist Christian McBride mused recently, citing names like Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and James Brown. “Quincy Jones was one of those people.”
Jones, who died on Nov. 3 at the age of 91, undoubtedly belongs on that short list of icons. From his early years as a trumpeter in big bands led by the likes of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, to his genre-bridging success as a producer, arranger, composer, conductor and bandleader, Jones became a monumental force in American music. His shelves were lined with honors, including 28 Grammy Awards—the third-highest total in history.
Of course he was also a towering figure in music education and philanthropy, and his passions for helping student musicians and those in need often intersected. In 1994, Bill Clinton appointed Jones to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, which empowered the producer to advocate for more public funding for music education. Another of Jones’ many projects, the Quincy Jones Musiq Consortium, sought to create a teaching curriculum for American music and its roots in Black American culture. As a testament to his belief in the power of mentorship, he served as a producer on the acclaimed 2014 documentary Keep on Keepin’ On, which tells the story of the kinship between jazz master Clark Terry and Justin Kauflin, a blind jazz-piano prodigy.
The preeminent jazz bassist of his generation, Christian McBride has also enjoyed wide-ranging accomplishments across the musical and professional spectrum. In addition to leading several distinctive ensembles, from fiery small groups to a big band, the nine-time Grammy winner currently serves as the artistic director of the Newport Jazz Festival and as a board member and artistic chair of the educational arts organization Jazz House Kids.
The two crossed paths on a number of occasions. When Jones released his memoir, Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones, in 2001, McBride performed with him on the Late Show With David Letterman as part of an all-star group featuring several musicians whose tenures with the bandleader stretched back decades. In 2016, the bassist served as musical director for a tribute concert at the Monterey Jazz Festival, where Jones was introduced by actor and jazz aficionado Clint Eastwood.
A Behind-the-Scenes Superstar
As an acclaimed producer and arranger, Quincy Jones was unique in achieving superstardom through behind-the-scenes roles. In part that was due to his Midas touch: His contributions were essential to making Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad the era-defining blockbusters that they became, for example. But for a young listener, McBride recalled, it could be confusing to pin down just what form those contributions took.
“I was used to R&B and soul records, where the lead artist did something pretty obvious,” the bassist said. “They sang or they played an instrument. But when I would see a Quincy Jones album, I would see he was the producer or arranger—but what does he do? My mother did her best to explain to a 6-year-old kid that he was the organizer and he envisioned the whole session, but I just thought, ‘You get to make your own record because of that?’”
One of McBride’s earliest memories of Jones was the 1974 album Body Heat, which he co-produced with one of McBride’s idols, bass great Ray Brown. While the album featured contributions from a number of jazz legends, including Herbie Hancock, Hubert Laws, Grady Tate, Bob James and Dave Grusin, the music was heavily influenced by funk and soul. It was only later that McBride connected Jones to his past in straight-ahead acoustic jazz.
A Genius Arranger, Explained
McBride heard Jones’ musical worlds collide in 1989, on the multiple-Grammy-winning album Back on the Block, which paired jazz giants with hip-hop stars and R&B singers. Eventually, the bassist dug deeper and found Basie One More Time: Music From the Pen of Quincy Jones, Count Basie’s 1959 album of music composed and arranged by Jones. It was through that recording that the genius of Jones’ arrangements was revealed to McBride. He cited “Jessica’s Day,” a song he’d known through later versions by saxophonist Cannonball Adderley.
“Cannonball’s version is medium tempo, kind of hard driving. The version on Basie One More Time is slow, and every single note is masterfully harmonized and orchestrated. That was one of the first big-band records I heard that really made me interested in learning how to arrange and orchestrate. I wondered, ‘How do you get five-part harmony from this melody line?’ It was fascinating to me.”
In later years McBride studied the score, receiving a key lesson in restraint and color. “I learned that just because you have five woodwinds doesn’t mean you have to use all five woodwinds all the time,” he said. “There are certain passages where just three woodwinds are playing, or just four woodwinds are playing, or it’s all five—depending on the line. The line determined how many horns were needed at a particular time. That was groundbreaking for me, because I was always under the impression that if you have five woodwinds, somebody must be playing a note all the time.”
Whether composing for film soundtracks or crafting epic pop productions, Jones masterfully employed strings to dramatic effect. “My favorite Quincy soundtrack is [Edward Dmytryk’s 1965 thriller] Mirage. You can hear him clearly coming out of Bartók, out of late 19th- and 20th-century classical music. When you compare other composers from that time, Elmer Bernstein or even his friend Henry Mancini, there’s so much imagination in his writing. There was an unspoken rule in Hollywood that Black writers don’t understand the nuances of strings. Quincy was one of the first people who was able to break that wall down.”
A Visionary Advocate for the Electric Bass
Jones was a member of Lionel Hampton’s ensemble when the vibraphonist and bandleader introduced electric bass to the big band. By the time Jones was leading his own bands the practice was far more common, though McBride explained that Jones’ use of the instrument—or more precisely, the instrumentalist—was unique.
“The late ’60s and early ’70s saw a shift in commercial music, where you had to use the electric bass,” McBride said. “Lalo Schifrin had to do that, Henry Mancini had to do that, Burt Bacharach had to do that. But because of Quincy’s jazz cred, he hired the right electric bass players to play what he needed to be played.”
He pointed to the gospel classic “Oh Happy Day,” as interpreted by Jones on 1969’s Walking in Space, which featured Ray Brown on acoustic bass and Chuck Rainey on electric. “When they go to the chorus, it switches to the electric bass and Chuck Rainey is playing some things that flat-out were not being played on the electric bass at that time,” he said. “I will go so far as to say he was playing some things that [Motown legend] James Jamerson wasn’t even playing at that time. It’s a precursor to Jaco Pastorius and Rocco Prestia.”
McBride argued that Jones’ instinct, famously associated with Duke Ellington, to write for musicians’ singular personalities rather than for their instruments, was his greatest strength. Even a song like “Soul Bossa Nova,” associated since its use in Austin Powers with 1960s retro kitsch, used the paired flutes of jazz virtuosos Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Jerome Richardson. Jones’ inventive ideas extended to offbeat touches like recruiting Eddie Van Halen and Vincent Price for unforgettable contributions to Thriller.
“I think that’s the true genius in both his arranging and producing skills,” McBride said. “He always knew the right people to call. The cat studied people the same way he studied notes.”