Topics in Recorded Music: Quincy Jones

Catalog description

Few American musicians have enjoyed a career as long and diverse as Quincy Delight Jones. By the time of his death on the 3rd of November in 2024, he had already won most of the industry awards available to those who create and arrange music for live bands, orchestras, film, tv, theatre, and the recording industry. But perhaps most importantly, he had simultaneously facilitated or elevated the careers of many other performers—people representing almost every gender, race, and musical genre. After a successful career as an arranger for artists like Frank Sinatra, in the early 1960s, Quincy became the first black A&R exec hired by Mercury Records, where he wrote and produced the first pop hits sung by girl-group-era legend Leslie Gore. In addition to Jones embarked upon his own career as an artist — perhaps the first producer to regularly release product under his own name — hugely influential albums that influenced the shape of music in the 1970s and that of hip-hop in the decades to come. Jones solidified his reputation among artists and label owners alike as a reliable and sophisticated "fixer," and of course his most acclaimed intervention as the co-architect of Michael Jackson's solo career and producer of Jackson's hugely successful albums in the 1980s. Throughout the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and '90s, Quincy used his corporate savvy to extend his interests far beyond his usual A&R chores. Indeed, any musician or aspiring entrepreneur seeking to profit from multiple spheres of activity, would do well to study the strategic stages of Quincy's career. This 7-week, 2-credit class will examine the personal, academic, collaborative, philosophical and economic sides of Jones's career decisions, viewed through the lens of his massive creative output.