Fa un parell de dies va sortir una entrevista al Quincy Jones a la revista Vulture. Als mitjans han ressaltat les rajades sobre els Beatles, Michael Jackson, i els afers del Marlon Brando amb els serveis de missatgeria. Més enllà d'aquestes anècdotes, l'entrevista està plena de reflexions molt interessants.
- He was nervous to play with Toots Thielemans, Herbie Hancock, Hubert Laws, Roland Kirk — those are some scary motherfuckers. Toots was one of the greatest soloists that ever fucking lived. The cats on my records were the baddest cats in the world and Hendrix didn’t want to play with them.
- People limit themselves musically, man. Do these musicians know tango? Macumba? Yoruba music? Samba? Bossa nova? Salsa? Cha-cha?
- Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso are the kings!
- Qwest TV. Everybody is excited about it. It’s going to be a musical Netflix. It’s the best music from every genre around the world
- Well, who’s doing good work? Bruno Mars. Chance the Rapper. Kendrick Lamar. I like where Kendrick’s mind is. He’s grounded. Chance, too. And the Ed Sheeran record is great. Sam Smith — he’s so open about being gay. I love it. Mark Ronson is someone who knows how to produce.
- Jazz is at the top of the hierarchy of music because the musicians
learned everything they could about music. Every time I used to see
Coltrane he’d have Nicolas Slonimsky’s book.
Yeah, he was famously obsessed with the Thesaurus of Scales and
Melodic Patterns.
That’s the one you’re talking about, right?
That’s right. You’re bringing up all the good subjects now! Everything that Coltrane ever played was in that thesaurus. In fact, right near the front of that book, there’s a 12-tone example — it’s “Giant Steps.”Everyone thinks Coltrane wrote that, he didn’t. It’s Slonimsky. That book started all the jazz guys improvising in 12-tone. Coltrane carried that book around till the pages fell off.
