Quincy jones quotes

I went with Lionel Hampton for three years. Out of that came a trip to Europe.

My brother died of cancer two years ago (1998), renal cell carcinoma. He was my only real brother and I didn't know what to do. I'd never been so desperate in my life.

There's power in the collective. If you don't believe me, just watch a symphony orchestra with a conductor and 120 people who are thinking about exactly the same thing at the same moment - no babies, no stock markets, no mortgages. Just 32nd notes.

My earliest memories are being pinned to a fence with a switchblade.

When I was about five or seven years old my mother was placed in a mental institution and so we were with our father who worked very hard, and we had to figure a lot of things out.

Thank God, 50 years ago I learned that our entire business is all based on two things; a great song and a great story. Film, television, if you don't have that story, nothing else matters. You don't call anybody else or direct anybody. The same with a song. A great song can make the worst singer in the world a star.

I go to the favelas in Brazil. It's the same in the South Side of Chicago. It's the same, or just more violent. We're trying to get them to stop selling dope. You see kids with AK-47s, and nine-year-olds with nine millimeters. You know, they don't play. They make us look like nuns.

You cannot get an A if you're afraid of getting an F.

You Make Your Mistakes To Learn How To Get To The Good Stuff

Excellence isn't an act, it's a habit

Everybody has their idiosyncrasies.

If I don't have a mother, I'll let music be my mother.

I got to trumpet, finally. That's why I love to write for brass, and [Count] Basie and [Frank] Sinatra and all that stuff, 'cause that's just like part of my DNA.

The people who make it to the top - whether they're musicians, or great chefs, or corporate honchos - are addicted to their calling ... [they] are the ones who'd be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren't being paid.

I chose the trombone because the trombone players in the marching band got to be up front with the majorettes (because of the slides) and I loved that!

Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old shared a little of what he is good at doing.

I never felt like that in my life. I didn't know human beings played these instruments. I heard them in Chicago and Louisville and St. Louis all my life, you know? But I didn't know human beings played them, you know? So the next day I went to Coontz Junior High School and I started on sousaphone, tuba, B-flat baritone, E-flat alto, French horn, trombone.

I don't remember feeling love.

I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.

I never felt like I had a mother.

Music was the one thing I could control. It was the one world that offered me freedom. When I played music, my nightmares ended. My family problems disappeared. I didnt have to search for answers. The answers lay no further than the bell of my trumpet and my scrawled, pencilled scores. Music made me full, strong, popular, self-reliant and cool.

A bad song, the three best singers in the world cannot save it, and that's the bottom line.

Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.

I'd been in love before - I was always in love.

I look back and say, "This must have been somebody else." I am not going to tell you that when I was 4, I dreamed about all of this.

My grandmother had this high-tech security system - a rusty nail she used to lock the door.

All guys get into music because they love music and they also want to get the girls.

We were in the heart of the ghetto in Chicago during the Depression, and every block - it was probably the biggest black ghetto in America - every block also is the spawning ground practically for every gangster, black and white, in America too.

All the jazz guys had interracial relationships, and even the ladies did. Over the years, interracial relationships have been a hip, almost defiant thing, a way of saying "Nobody can put a boundary around me."

Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. 'Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it's done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.'

I tell my kids and I tell proteges, always have humility when you create and grace when you succeed, because its not about you. You are a terminal for a higher power. As soon as you accept that, you can do it forever.

Some summers my father would take us down to visit our grandmother in Louisville, who was an ex-slave, Susan Jones, and she had a shotgun shack they call it, and no electricity, a well in the back, a coal stove, kerosene lamps.

After every war, there was a significant change in the music, and I can understand how that happened. If you participate in protecting the country, you think you can be part of it, but you come back home and it's worse than ever.

It's the attitude about life, man. Looking at the light instead of the dark. Looking at love instead of fear.

A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer - you put a great song on top of that, you're really in great shape!

I used to practice piano for hours, and now, with a synthesizer, you can input the music and the machine perfects the song. That's why we have so many people in the music business who should be plumbers. They don't really understand music because they haven't been trained.

Empty the cup every time and it comes back at twice as full. I developed that attitude when I was very, very young, when I decided I didn't want to be a gangster anymore. Whether it's just shining shoes, I said okay, I'm going to do this better than anybody else did it in my life.

Playing the game, and unfortunately, playing the gangster game is very profitable.

Michael (Jackson) was so shy, he'd sit down and sing behind the couch with his back to me while I sat with my hands over my eyes-and the lights off.

I don't deserve a Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. But fifteen years ago, I had a brain operation and I didn't deserve that, either. So I'll keep it.

I got in the school band and the school choir. It all hit me like a ton of bricks, everything just came out. I played percussion for a while, and stayed after school forever just tinkering around with different things, the clarinets and the violins.

You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.

My daddy was a carpenter that worked with the Jones boys, who are the most notorious in America. The black gangsters, you know, they were no joke. And he was their master carpenter. He used to build their homes, and all I saw when I was 11 years old were dead bodies and tommy guns and stogies, and backrooms, you know, Drexel Wine and Liquor, with the big piles of money underneath.

Jazz has the power to make men forget their differences and come together... Jazz is the personification of transforming overwhelmingly negative circumstances into freedom, friendship, hope, and dignity.

Prince.. a true artist in every sense of the world.Gone way too soon.

Every day you must be able to say, I have to get up because I'm needed by someone. As long as you have that, you're healthy.

Louis 'Thunder Thumbs' Johnson was one of the greatest bass players to ever pick up the instrument, as a member of the Brothers Johnson, we shared decades of magical times working together in the studio and touring the world. From my albums 'Body Heat' and 'Mellow Madness,' to their platinum albums 'Look Out for #1,' 'Right On Time,' 'Blam' and 'Light Up the Night,' which I produced, to Michael's solo debut 'Off the Wall,' I considered Louis a core member of my production team. He was a dear and beloved friend and brother, and I will miss his presence and joy of life every day.

It's easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play.

The process is the most beautiful part.

Young people should travel, and they don’t. You can’t know if you don’t go.

My son is a hip-hop producer.

Not one ounce of my self worth depends on your acceptance of me.

Arts is just as important as military defense, you know? Emotional defense is just as important.

Benny [Carter] opened the eyes of a lot of producers and studios, so that they could understand that you could go to blacks for other things outside of blues and barbecue. He's a total musician. He was the pioneer, he was the foundation. He made it possible for that doubt to be taken away.

We stole a box of honey jars one time and went out in the woods and took care of the whole box. I don't think I touched honey again for 20 years. I never wanted to see honey again.

They say a blind hog will find the acorn one day.

I'm never in my life going to do a record that's a tribute to myself. I don't need it.

Editing while you're writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.

Did you know you would become as successful as you have? Hell, no. But you know what? You were prepared, baby.

I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young, every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn't have MTV, we didn't have television.

It has been proven time and time again in countless studies that students who actively participate in arts education are twice as likely to read for pleasure, have strengthened problem-solving and critical thinking skills, are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, four times more likely to participate in a math and science fair.

Greatness occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you have peace of mind.

I'm a tremendous believer and supporter in hip-hop and rap.

I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.

The climate in the '50s and '60s for black performers or black people in the entertainment business was atrocious. It was atrocious.

If you started in New York you were dealing with the biggest guys in the world. You're dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything. We got more experience working in Seattle.

What happens when you get a big break and you haven't prepared yourself? That becomes the biggest mistake you've ever made. I see it happen all the time.

It's very freaky in Chicago.There's something in the water there, I don't know what it is. But the actual word Chicago means, in the Indian language, garlic. It was just garlic and mosquitoes there. And that is the roughest city on the planet, and I been to every place in the world.

I was reading Omar Khayyam, Kahlil Gibran, Rumi, L. Ron Hubbard, all sorts of philosophy. Bebop cats are like that. Curious. I wanted to know about everything.

I was married for 36 years but now I'm free.

China's got a billion people and a hit record over there is a million records. You know that ain't right.

I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain't that the truth."

I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we've had in a long time. It's sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of black music in America.

I've been driven all my life by a spirit of adventure and a criminal level of optimism. I believed in my dreams because they were my only option. The people who make it to the top are addicted to their calling. You have to honor the gift God has given you. The people who get the call are the ones who'd be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren't being paid.

I'm just a musician and a record producer.

Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.

It was messed up, because in 1947 my family moved to Seattle and I had to get up at 5:00 o'clock in the morning to catch the ferry back to Bremerton every morning because I was Boys Club president.

A song should have all the color and beauty of every rose.

There’s nothing in the world worse than having an opportunity that you’re not prepared for. Good luck usually follows the collision of opportunity and preparation - it’s a result of that collision. You’ve got to be prepared. So, make your mistakes now and make them quickly. If you’ve made the mistakes, you know what to expect the next time. That’s how you become valuable.

I learned real early why God gave us two ears and one mouth, because you're supposed to listen twice as much as you talk.

A person's age can be determined by the degree of pain he experiences when he comes in contact with a new idea.

I was raised in Chicago and I guess that was one of the special breeding grounds for gangsters of all colors. That was the Detroit of the gangster world. The car industry was thugs.

The only music I don't like is bad music.

A lot of the guys were like that - Oscar Pettiford - they just took me under their wing, and that's why I automatically help young people. I just love it, because they did that for me.

You have to know that your real home is within.

Let's not get too full of ourselves. Let's leave space for God to come into the room.

When you're over the hill, that's when you pick up speed.

I started imagining this whole different world. It was a society of musicians, a family I hoped I could belong to one day.

Every country can be defined through their food, their music and their language. That's the soul of a country.

Making a record is like painting a school bus with a toothbrush

I improvised my life along the way - I just moved step-by-step. And I knew that if I got better, something would happen.

Communications are making this one world. Back in the day, 400-500 years ago, nobody knew what anyone else was doing. It's on the 6 O'Clock news now. Now we can say, Oh, that's the way they live. Oh, they do that!! Opportunities, the chance to bring about change, it's all based on communication. Communication and jet planes.

I was the most subtle person in the world.

My dream is to put together a performance of the evolution of black music with Cirque du Soleil . I would also like to do street opera and children's books. But even as I work toward these things, I want to simplify my life.

Im probably the only one in the world you can name thats worked with Billie Holiday, Louie Armstrong, Ella, Duke, Miles, Dizzy, Ray Charles, Aretha, Michael Jackson, rappers. Fly Me to the Moon was played on the moon by Buzz Aldrin. Sinatra. Paul Simon. Tony Bennett. Im the only one.

To me it's no accident that all the symphony orchestras around the world tune up to the note A. And A is 440 cycles, except in Germany where it's 444. But the universe is 450 cycles. So what I'm trying to say is, I think it's God's voice, melody especially. Counterpoint, retrograde inversion, harmony... that's the science and the craft.

Though negative things have happened to me, God somehow let me know that becoming bitter was not the way to go. You die when you do that. Someone once told me that if you fully open your arms to receive love, you'll get some scratches and cuts on your arms, but a lot of love will come in. If you close your arms, you might never get cut - but the good stuff won't come in either.

I'm a great believer in letting lyrics just flow out, wherever they come from.

The relationship with a producer and an artist is really special. It's got to be love and respect, amazing mutual respect for each other, because that's what makes a good record.

Whenever a woman would come too close, I would cut her off. Part of that was vindictive - but that was totally subconscious.

Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.

We got into all the trouble you could ever imagine. We figured that if the Jones boys and all the gangsters ran Chicago, we had our own territory now. All the stores, all the crime, we were in charge of everything, my stepbrother and my brother.

Billy Strayhorn wrote Multicolored Blue. Billy to me is the boss of the arrangers.

If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.

The act of multitrack recording is the act of arranging.

It's amazing how much trouble you can get in when you don't have anything else to do.

You want your parents to say, "Hey, I'm proud of you." When you don't hear that, you learn to compensate. You say, "Hell, I don't need their approval. If I get my music right, I'll have everyone else's approval." I didn't understand it then, but I now know that's what happened to me.

I've met every freak in the business.

Eight kids and a stepmother, and I just wanted to be out of there and so when I got a scholarship from Boston to the Schillinger House, which is now the Berklee School of Music, I couldn't wait to get out of there.