In 2017, throughout a efficiency from native garage-jazz quartet Industrial Revelation at Upstream Music Competition, I observed a commotion close to the stage as individuals huddled across the VIP seats. I stood on my toes and seemed—Is that Quincy Jones?!
Whereas Jones, the legendary musician, producer, and alumnus of Seattle’s Garfield Excessive Faculty, had given a keynote handle earlier within the competition, I didn’t count on to see the mastermind behind Michael Jackson’s Thriller sitting amongst the group. However there he was, shaking fingers, taking photos with followers, and even sharing generously with a younger musician who requested him about rating orchestration. Then, it was my flip to thank him. He grasped my hand and grinned, wrapped in considered one of his iconic striped scarves.
On Sunday, Jones handed away at his residence in Los Angeles. He was 91. Although it’s been many a long time since he lived in Seattle, and he was solely a resident from 1943 till 1951, Jones constantly nurtured his ties to town over the course of his life and impressed generations of native musicians.
“Generally, in right now’s musical world, there generally is a degree of superficiality, and Quincy was the alternative of that,” says Riley Mulherkar, a graduate of Garfield Excessive Faculty and rising jazz trumpeter who launched his acclaimed debut report earlier this yr. “[He had] mastery of the shape at a younger age—after which he was capable of take that into all types of musical conditions, and actually change the world.”
Jones was born on March 14, 1933, in Chicago. After a tumultuous early childhood along with his mom, who had schizophrenia, Jones’s father, Quincy Jones Sr., moved Jones and his brother to Bremerton, Washington. When he was 12, Jones started enjoying trumpet at Bremerton’s Coontz Junior Excessive.
In 1947, after Jones’s father remarried, he moved his sons, his new spouse, and her three youngsters, to Seattle. Jones began at Garfield Excessive Faculty and rapidly met fellow scholar Charlie Taylor, who performed saxophone.
Taylor was one of many sons of Evelyn Bundy, a trailblazing Seattle jazzwoman who shaped one of many metropolis’s first jazz bands within the Nineteen Twenties. At Garfield, Taylor was able to put collectively his personal group. He invited Jones to change into a member of his band, and Jones agreed, becoming a member of a solid of elite musicians at Garfield together with Oscar Holden Jr. and Grace Holden, two youngsters of pianist and Seattle jazz scene patriarch Oscar Holden.
After their first few gigs because the Charlie Taylor Band, Bumps Blackwell, a bandleader, songwriter, arranger, and report producer (who would go on to mentor Ray Charles, Ernestine Anderson, and Sam Cooke, amongst others), supplied to handle them because the Bumps Blackwell Junior Band.
As Paul de Barros notes in his e book Jackson Road After Hours: The Roots of Jazz in Seattle, the Bumps Blackwell Junior Band was a “focus” in individuals’s reminiscences of Jackson Road, which was residence to a bustling jazz scene within the years round World Conflict II till 1960.
The time within the band was influential for Jones, too. Jones obtained to carry out continuously, together with opening for Nat King Cole at Civic Auditorium, and the group allowed him to befriend different notable musicians who labored on Jackson Road on the time, like Ray Charles or “R.C.”, who first taught Jones about arranging.
Jones left Seattle in 1951 to attend Berklee Faculty of Music. He quickly dropped out to tour with Lionel Hampton’s orchestra and finally type his personal band. From there, Jones’s profession is one milestone after one other.
Some highlights from Jones’s profession embrace working as musical director, arranger, and trumpeter in trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s band, turning into the primary African American vice chairman at Mercury Information in 1964, composing movie scores for dozens of movies, composing for iconic TV exhibits together with Roots, and serving as producer and arranger for top-tier expertise together with, in fact, Michael Jackson.
Jones additionally based Quincy Jones Productions, an all-encompassing media and artist administration firm that helped jumpstart the careers of artists like Jacob Collier.
With all his accomplishments and fame, Seattle organizations have bestowed Jones with numerous honors, together with Lifetime Achievement Awards from each the Northwest African American Museum and the Seattle Worldwide Movie Competition. Likewise, Jones stored up his connection to the Emerald Metropolis, usually supporting the native music scene and returning residence for visits.
Way back to 1959, when Jones was employed to type his personal band, he employed musicians from Seattle he admired, together with pianist Patti Bown, trumpeter Floyd Standifer, and considered one of his lifelong associates, bassist Buddy Catlett.
Upon Catlett’s loss of life in 2014, Jones tributed his “brother and bandmate” on Fb, calling him “one of many best bass gamers to ever take the stage. From Charlie Taylor’s and Bumps Blackwell’s bands after we had been beginning out in Seattle to my Free and Simple tour of Europe, we traveled the world enjoying the music we love.”
Jones has stayed particularly linked with Garfield Excessive Faculty. In 2008, when Garfield Excessive Faculty determined to call their freshly renovated performing arts middle after Jones, he flew in for the dedication ceremony. As not too long ago as final yr, Jones donated $50,000 to Seattle’s Washington Center Faculty, which feeds into Garfield Excessive Faculty, to assist hold their jazz program alive.
“At the moment, I had the pleasure of visiting my old fashioned in Seattle, Garfield Excessive, and man did it carry again some reminiscences!!,” Jones wrote in a 2017 Fb put up. “I am unable to imagine it’s been 70 years since I walked these halls as a scholar…Transferring to Seattle perpetually modified me for the higher…and discovering music right here confirmed me that I might be greater than a statistic…”
Mulherkar, like Jones, discovered music at Garfield Excessive Faculty, the place Jones is now embedded into the lore of the varsity.
In 2009, as a highschool junior enjoying trumpet in Garfield’s jazz band, Mulherkar had the prospect to satisfy and work with Jones when the legendary producer got here into their rehearsal. He performed the scholars in a pair songs, together with a swingin’ Jones authentic and considered one of Mulherkar’s favorites referred to as “Stockholm Sweetnin’.”
“It was exhausting to even wrap our minds round, as a result of there’s Quincy Jones, the celeb,” stated Mulherkar. “It felt so particular to have this private connection to the person, as a Garfield scholar, as a trumpet participant, and [as] somebody who wished to make my life within the music.”
Mulherkar, who now lives in New York, nonetheless finds it particular that the beginnings of his profession had been so touched by the icon.
“As a jazz musician from Seattle who went to Garfield… I really like that he was capable of make such an incredible impression ranging from a spot that, for me, is so relatable,” stated Mulherkar.
By Garfield college students like Mulherkar, and the numerous different artists Jones mentored as a producer and music government, Jones’s musical legacy—and devotion to his Seattle roots—carries on.
