It was before he went to prison. That's the Ghetto Gump shit. Prince, all of them. How old would you have been when you first saw a dead body? Son: Thomas Oliver - 1849-1920 Janet Mercer Oliver - 1855-1943 Janet Grieve Oliver - 1879-1950 He worries often that he'll say too much ("I always get in trouble, you know. Ignorance is no thing.". (24). Sadly, their marriage was over within years and was finalized in 1974 so Quincy could go on to marry his third wife, Peggy Lipton. And it's the best thing I ever did. Lemon rules, man. 13. Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. (26), "Yes! They're taking music back where it belongs. (4). Frank was always trying to hook me up with Marilyn Monroe, but Marilyn Monroe had a chest that looked like pears, man.". "I'm fighting that like a warrior. 26. He killed every motherfucker he could see.". You put some lime in the meringue. You know what I mean? "Yes, he did. "The funniest thing you ever saw in your life. "Keeps dementia and Parkinson's away," he says. Back then I was dogging it up, and Jeri and her sister were the hotsy-totsies at school, he recalled. Jones is one of just a handful of people who have accomplished the EGOTwinner of at least one Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. The first record I did with Dinah WashingtonI was 20 years old or somethingwas 'I Love My Trombone-Playing Daddy with His Big Long Slidin' Thing.' Quincy Jones married Jeri Caldwell in 1957. Stockholmshe's coming in next week. Don't you ever forget they're 13 years smarter than we are. ". ", And then Jones started telling me what it was like to discuss music with Stravinsky.. "He knew. Finding a job without a computer in the design industry was hard, and the artist was on welfare for a time. And when the rest of the city is fully asleep, that's when Quincy Jones, three months short of his 85th birthday, will really get to work. Later he was told that he'd had a one-in-a-hundred chance of surviving. And four years later, Jerry Lee Lewis copies it (13), records it, and becomes a legend. That's the only way you can be great, you know, is pay attention to the best guys who ever did it. CharlieI used to go to things with Charlie Parker, manboy, he'd have everybody smoke some weed and he'd have, like, the founders of Sears Roebuck, the ladies walking around the pool, all of them nude, man. He had a toothpick and was looking at his belt buckle. I didn't know that was a perception of you. You gotta make up a story she's gonna believe at 5:30 in the morning. Cosby Jesus, he says, and moves on without further comment. What memories. Quincy Jones in 1978 worked on music for the Wiz, this is where he met icon, Michael Jackson. Jones was born in Chicago, where his father worked as a carpenter for a local gang known as the Jones Boys. He sighs, as if to acknowledge how surreal the contrast is between the scene here, in his grand hilltop mansion surrounded by all his reminders of a lifetime of success and high living, and the world he is describing. It means if you've got it at 12, you know you're going all the way.". Because we all used to hang out together. There's something very beautiful and haunting about this that stays with me: the trumpet player fingering notes on an invisible trumpet that he knows he can never dare hear. I mean, the other guys were dead. Prince. "They say coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. Since I was a little kid, I've always heard the people that don't wanna do the work. You ever see Black Orpheus? They're here all the time.". Every day. And because each sentence from his mouth comes out sounding like a benediction, it takes a while to register that the word the 84-year-old Quincy Jones uses more than any other, as a term of both endearment and opprobrium, is motherfucker. Kidada Ann Jones was born on March 22, 1974, in Los Angeles, California, US, as the eldest daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton. Traveling bands? I just think that's who they are, you know. This time he listened. Every drop.". Isn't that sacrilegious, telling the Pope he has pimp shoes? When I arrived here this evening, Jones had just woken up. He's still with them. ", "Yeah! After his divorce in 1974 from Martina's mom, he married Peggy Lipton the day after the divorce. Rashida Jones was born in Los Angeles, California, the younger daughter of media mogul, producer, and musician Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton. But that was just a coincidence." You know, I came up with the two wildest motherfuckers on the planet. He'd get drunk, and Jilly, his right-hand guy, stone gangster, would get behind him and break the guy's ribs. I guess you're supposed to be the one to slow it down. "Shit, everybody in the band bought it! See your friend with his head off? Gorgeous lady, man.". Shit, man. "I forgot about it," he says. At one point, he asks for a laptop so that he can show me some of his young jazz protgs on YouTube, and spends about 20 minutes playing videos. She said, 'We were doing a recruitment film for Hitlerthink I'm going to tell Hitler, "One more time, Adolf!"?' (27). A conversation about Charlie Parker, Tupac, Michael Jackson, and Prince: When people think about Quincy Jones, what do you think they misunderstand about you? On a soundstage with Frank Sinatra, 1964. "Yeah, Welsh. "Of course, man! His mouth is inside, but he just ate the parrot so he couldn't get out of the cage. ", "With some greens. She was Goebbels's girlfriendhe was like the publicist for the Third Reich, you know. I remember one day we were out there working at Hayvenhurst, and we couldn't find Muscles, and we went downstairsthey were refurbishing this room down thereand here this cat, man, is hanging out of the parrot cage. I mean, when you're hungry. It started off funny. I Thought Mentalphysics Was New-Age Nonsense. So I stay in his castle.". However, she is also happily married to a music producer, Stewart Levine. We'll be talking, and suddenly he mentions that on the other side of the room there are cards from Picasso's wife, Jacqueline. And I know his mother, Afeni, who was a pain in the ass. They had three girls and my father, and they were light-skinned, high yellow, straight hair.". Jones is the proud father of seven children, some have followed into the showbiz industry including actresses' daughters, Kidada and Rashida Jones. Quincy Jones with Michael Jackson at the 1984 Grammy Awards, where Thriller won Album of the Year. This is a human being, man. 20. You were around in the era when the animals started appearing, weren't you? "You need anything?" I dont see you ghting for your race. She soon moved on to acting roles, appearing in such TV series as Bewitched and The John . ", "Yeah, I started shooting. '", "Just go down there and do it, man. Julie Taymor to directthat's my baby, biggest in history, Lion King. "From wanting to be a gangster toall the other stuff.". You really met Leni Riefenstahl? ", "Michael's parrot. In more recent times, Jones has hung out with Aldrin: Hes a wild motherfucker., "Yeah, 1969. Charlie Parker, everybody there, was married to a white wife.". He said that was his intention.". Jones exudes positivity about most of the people he has known, but not all of them, and he is not above Schadenfreude. Two up front and three in the back. Stockholm she's coming in next week.. That's the story of America. Cape Town. Seven double Jack Daniel's an hour. Vegas in '64 was fucked-up. I ask him what moral he draws from this turn of events. It doesn't hit you that way it should hit you. The proud father, who's best known for producing the King Of Pop, Michael Jackson's seminal albums: Off The Wall (1979), Thriller (1982) and . I don't give a shit." 25. It's a life punctuated by so many disparate encounters and achievements and circumstances that it is hard to believe they are the experiences of a single man. They were very in love. And red beans and rice. Miles (5) said the same thing, on a different occasion, at the Chateau Marmont. And it was not going well, that's for sure. Quincy Jones with Michael Jackson at the 1984 Grammy Awards, . Jones spent his early years on the South Side of Chicago. Because it's not going anywhere right now. Everybody in the car died except for me. Because it was frightening, and every day you never knew what was happening. BrazilBelo Horizonte, So Paulo, and Rio. He didn't say to the brothers, 'Go with him.' "That's heavy. The weed smokers behind them, that's us. I noticed that she stopped at the water fountain every day the dog squad is real good at noticing patterns. Nanotechnology, and the genome breakthrough at Cal State, that's what the Nobel guys said is gonna allow it. ", "No, it wasn't that kind of relationship. Quincy has also enjoyed a bustling private life: Hes been married three times and has seven children between five women. Zodiac Sign: Libra. You can't even imagine that. "No, because she never got involvedshe never got passionate about what the Third Reich was doing. Buzz Aldrin took the song with him on a portable cassette. The Real-Life Diet of Andrew Huberman, Who Switches to Red Party Lights After Dark, The 17 Best New Menswear Items to Buy This Week, Watch Khalid Meet Quincy Jones and Have an Epic Conversation, New Mitchell & Ness Creative Director Don C on the Power of the Throwback, Working With the Bulls, and Learning from Virgil Abloh, The Only Streaming Service You Need Right Now. Early life and education [ edit] The elder daughter of the marriage between composer/arranger Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton, [2] [3] Jones was born in Los Angeles, California. Oprah (6) had my Thriller (7) ribs on the show four times. I've seen him shooting in his testicles, man. He begins talking about his life. Always been fun. That's the way it was back then. Him playing alto, buck dancing around the pool. Over the years, Jones's explanation for why he is the way he is, and for all he has done in his life, has very often narrowed down to one single circumstance: growing up without a mother. One of these was part of the National GuardJones lied and said that he was 18 so that he could join. "Yeah. he asks at one point, then answers his own question. And use Jermaine's son, who sings and dances just like Michael.". "And they stuck an ice pick"he points to his left temple"in here, the same time. Come on, man. "They be thinking I'm 84 and retired and all that shit. "Oh yeah. But Jones didn't go. Oh baby! He said, 'Trying, Quincy, to assimilate, but it's not coming easy.' What did he think of what Prince had done onstage that night? And he went up therehe was the only white dude in the whole place. Every fucking night it was like the girls coming through Neiman Marcus: 'Oh, I like trumpet players,' 'I like sax players,' 'I like guitar players' Rita Hayworth, all of them. "Well, my daughters gave me new numbers, because they kept saying, 'Dad, you can't go out with girls younger than us.' 28. There's silence on the tape for a while. So did I hear that they've said to you that you could live until 120? And then, I'm sure it was not planned, one of the slave owners was a Welshman. "It was scary," he says. That's how he paid his bills. By this point, Jones was already very successfulas an arranger, as a solo artist, as a composer for movies and TVbut he'd first made his name as a trumpet player. And I went over the back of the seat and did like that on his shoulders: 'Pac!' That was why Frank had Mafia bodyguards for everybody in Basie's band and me. Meat is meat. Shanghai got a great girl over there from Shanghai, man. Quincy Jones has run with them all. ". Michael and Stevie [too]. Oh Godman, this is not going too well. Got to challenge the brain. Why? Every time we'd go to Detroit, at the Majestic hotel, standing in front, with his Italian shit on and amber glasses: Malcolm X. Detroit Red. I love him. We'd do one-nighters, I'd fly with him on his Learjet, he said, 'Let's get on the plane before Basie's drummer's cymbal stops ringing.' Six Playboy bunnies on that. Cairo, whew, he boasted. He produced albums for celebrated artists, including Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson. We used to just fuck upooh-l-l!" In '64! He met his rst wife, Jeri Caldwell, in high school. I've been traveling all my life, and I guarantee I travel more than any motherfucker on this planet.". He nods. She was Goebbels's girlfriend." Oh my God, they're fearless, man. Riefenstahl was a German film director whose work has long been stained by her close association with the Nazi movement. Because heroin's a strange drug. ", "Why not??? Ray had me on heroin for five months. They remained friends until Sinatras death. Cairo. "I don't know. Quincy was first married to actress Jeri Caldwell, from 1957 to 1966. It takes work, man. And the big bands, that's like the school of the dogs. Plus, he has worked with some of the biggest names of all time, such as Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra. She told me everybody in the Third Reich was on cocaine. He has won 28 Grammy Awards. Do you like any of the people who are big right now? But for a young boy, there was only the sense that something was very much not as it should be. And, all his life, Jones has relished that moment around midnight when something new begins. Or he'll say, pretty much apropos of nothing at all, "You run into amazing peopleI'm thinking back to Norman Mailer, man. Even Leni Riefenstahl. Just trying to be a rapper, man. In the late 1960s, Jones nearly bought the house, but the owner at the time said he would only rent it, so Jones bought a house from the actress Janet Leigh on Deep Canyon Drive instead. It was no problems after that. "I was losing my hair.". His mother was taken away when he was 7"to a mental home," he says, "for dementia praecox." Forgive us our trespasses and forgive those who trespass against us. And she was illiterate. he asks. Then Janet went by. Then It Changed My Life. It's bullshit. When Quincy Jones talkswandering from subject to subject as he doesthe next famous name is rarely more than a few seconds away, but it doesn't seem like name-dropping or showing off. To date, he has 28 Grammy awards to his name, one Emmy, and seven Oscar nominations. ", There almost seems no end to the projects he's involved in: TV shows, movies, documentaries, branded products (headphones, luggage, sunglasses, pens), charities, hotels, tech initiatives, artist management. Since 1957, GQ has inspired men to look sharper and live smarter with its unparalleled coverage of style, culture, and beyond. Jackson sings a few phrases, spins, moonwalks, then embraces Brown and can be seen whispering to him. Peggy Lipton, an American actress, model, and singer known for appearing in Mission Impossible and Twin Peaks, was Quincys longest marriage, as they walked down the aisle in 1974 and divorced in1989. "He had a perspective on details that was unmatched. In the show, only three songs retain their original names: the title track, "Please," and "Regret Me." "You see me with an 84-year-old woman? To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, "I feel like I'm just starting," Quincy Jones explains as he slowly takes a seat in the grand living room of his hilltop Bel-Air mansion, a wide arc of nighttime Los Angeles visible through the windows in front of him. She was a bitch, man. "I'll figure something out. So he went in the joint, all black, and he saw a booth over there with a guy with a hat on and five girls. "I couldn't get away with it, man," he concedes. Yeah. It's heavy. I just stop, man.". This is his normal schedule: Rise around four or five in the afternoon, and then ride through the night, his mind racing. They wrong, man. And for a few moments, Quincy Jones seems completely, wondrously transfixed. Cigarettes. He was a wild dude, man.". The snake didn't want to hear that shit.". ", "No. And the guy was not looking at his face. That's why the second one had blue eyes." And the curiosity's at an all-time high. 1. ", "Yeah! Jones met Charles in Seattle when Jones was 14 and Charles was 16; he was 25 when he met Sinatra, and worked as arranger on some of his most famous records. Quincy was 19 years old when he married Jeri, but admitted she wasnt his first true love just the first love he married. I ain't gonna lie. You know, we became good friends after that. But if you're black, that's what you get used to in America.". She grew up in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. Nope. But it wants more and more all the time. "I'm writing Mandarin, writing Arabic, writing katakana in Japan. My poor baby.". Kikada is their first child together, and she is also a model and an author. And Richard Brooks said, 'Fuck you, he's doing the music.' His friends did the same. He was bipolar, you know. I never understood why sex and violence were so commercialit's the primate brain, the animal brain. Crazy motherfucker, but he was a talented man. Another, smaller painting is one of Joness bathrooms. But come on, man, ain't nothing new. "Yeah. He said, 'Knowledge on acting is very important for television and movies, but it's ten times more important when you've been out with one woman all night till 5:30 in the morning and you have to go home to your wife. Finally, at around ten in the morning, Jones will allow himself to rest. And it won't bother you as long as you give it everything it wants. 18. 17. Them cats didn't play. I was terrified. "Yeah! If there's anything I've learned in 84 years, it's that whatever you put out there, it will come back at you. I wanted to take it, because I knew Michael was gonna throw it away.". ", You and Frank Sinatra had the first song played on the moon, didn't you? When you're 7 you can't tell the difference. 22. He disappears, and Jones's attention returns to me. 23. Jeri has one acting credit to her name, for an appearance in 1994s Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. How could you forgive someone who could say that? He either loved you with all of his heart or else he'd roll over your ass in a Mack truck in reverse. ", Now, as you know, some people say that at a certain age the desire just evaporates., A few minutes later he shows me photos of some of his children: "When you've been a dog all your life, God gives you beautiful daughters and you have to suffer. "Muscles used to come and wrap around me, my leg, around the chair, and crawl across the console. 7. She is Quincy's first child and the only child he had with his first wife. Sinatra, he went on, "wore that for 40 years. That's the primate in us, the four F's: Fright, Fight, Flight, and Fuck. Regardless of the paths that our lives took us on, I can say with the utmost certainty, that love is eternal. A couple of years later, Jones tried driving lessons. "Well, because I had three wives, white wives, and they stereotype, you know. There's also a bowl of sorbet, and that's all that Jones touches. Now he was told that he had a clip on a blood vessel in his brain, and that if he blew a trumpet in the ways that a trumpet player must, the clip would come free and he would die. My brother and I, we were 6 and 7 years old, we watched her taken away in a straitjacket. ), "Oh, pleasehe went 30 years with heroin, and then the police told him he couldn't get his license to play clubs unless he stops. I said, 'Impossible, man, I was with him last night.' For one thing, he seems to know, or have known, everybody. He came in on Monday morning, said, 'Hey, Q, how do you like your eggs?' ", He shrugs amiably. I can solve a puzzlea problem just stresses me out. Martina Jones is the daughter of Quincy Jones and former fashion model, actress, and singer Ulla Jones. "I forgive everybody. ", "Look where we've come," he says, raising his eyes to the ceiling. So he said, 'Oh, get [your son] some dance lessons.' He got paranoidgot outside and ran 15 blocks, nobody after him. I said, 'Y'all are not young anymore.' So the new numbers are 28 to 42. It's imperative. "Yeah! But they didn't use brothers. Man. And in Paris to this day, you go to Chez L'Ami Louis, the waiter will come over to you with a pepper shaker and say, 'Here's your Rubirosa.' ", "No. "Yeah. "Yeah. Jones made her professional acting debut in The Last Don, a 1997 mini-series based on the novel by Mario Puzo. And then he started on black coffee and Dutch Bols gin for 25 years." That's the way it works. Theyve Had an Inappropriate Relationship For Months, How Black Creators Can Expand Their Network with LinkedIn, Quincy Jones is an iconic music executive who has worked with the biggest stars, from, Quincy was married three times throughout his life, Quincy is now single, but has multiple girlfriends who live all around the world. When he was still using, would you talk to him about it? Born and raised in The Bronx, Jolie Jones' husband, Stewart Levine, began his lifelong musical journey at the young age of . You think a huge part of the horror of Nazism was just down to cocaine? There is a lot of talking to do. Because I've been around that shit all my life.". But when your father was alive, you never asked him about his father? That's tough, man. A person's either like that or they're not, man.". Cape Town. My daughter Kidada calls me LL QJLoose Lips"), but it doesn't really seem to stem the flow. Party our ass off. I mean, that woman was one of the greatest filmmakers that ever lived. The actor also has two daughters from other relationships. Frank knew first and he called me up, and he was like a little kid: 'We got the first music on the moon, man!' She didn't like me being in pop music. All he does is stick his dick in white bitches and make fucked-up kids.". Jones' final marriage was to actress Peggy Lipton. And he heard me.". Just see what you can put up with, what you can't.". he says. And went back:, 'Thank you very much.' She knows you've been out fucking around!'". "Seven or 8 years old. We came almost in love with each other. Buzz Aldrin. Jackson had film of what happened that night. And then she told me something that really hit home. ", "I was afraid to talk to him, really. My mind's so clear now, you know. All rights reserved. He bit [Jones' daughter] Rashida." Jones, who was married three times, says that these days: "I got 22 girlfriends . And it's amazingwomen get it, man. 11. "What is there to think, man? That ain't never gonna change. He was trying to get the one that he could sell the most, and Ed Snowden was the big topic then. He tells me he now speaks 26 languages. Fucking South Side of Chicago, they don't play, man. When something like that happensnearly being at this terrible eventwhat does it make you think? "Well, listen, anger doesn't get anything done, so you have to find out: How do you make it work? I wanted just to have a comfortable life, man. I'm telling you. Appeals are ongoing. At that, Marlon turned around and freaked out. Even setting aside the improbability of a man rising out of his background to achieve all that he has achieved, there have been at least three specific moments in Quincy Jones's life when it seems almost miraculous that fate allowed him to continue. (11) Amazing man. He'd smoked a joint so he got paranoid, you know, so he went back over to the guy and said, 'Look, I was a gentleman, man, I came and asked you first, man, right?' He was there. And then I fell down five flights of stairs, and I said, 'That ain't gonna work.' Some people would be judgmental about having lunch with someone who was so closely involved with the Nazi Party. So we go over there and he's got a kimono on and a ponytail. Was told not to marry actresses or singers. GQ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. And we went and talked, and after that we hugged and made up. ", "Did it hurt? He does some mic-stand tomfoolery, dances a little more, then nearly tumbles into the audience trying to pull down an oversize streetlamp prop. Jones was then married to Ulla Andersson, with whom he shares a son, Quincy, and a daughter, Martina, from 1967 to 1974. In 2007, she released anautobiography called Red Carpet Blues. (10). And you get halfway up, and your wife's sitting there, 5:30 in the morning, with her hands on her hips, giving you a cold hard stare.