You could say that Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was a kind of Mozart of the modern music world.
A special genius, someone who achieved something unique in his field: one of the most important composers and producers of the past 100 years. Quincy Jones, who died in early November 2024 at the age of 91, shaped modern music like no other: he arranged Frank Sinatra’s version of “Fly Me To The Moon”, a song that the ground station radioed to the astronauts in space during the moon landing in 1969. He wrote important film scores, for example for Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film drama The Color Purple. He produced Michael Jackson’s album Thriller, a milestone in music history and to this day the most successful album of all time with around 66 million copies sold.
When the news of his passing reached our office, we sat down and philosophized about Jones’ work. At one point, the conversation started to revolve around an album that is rather less well known alongside all his other life’s achievements: Q’s Jook Joint from 1995.
A record like a life’s work, also supported by a who’s who of the music world at the time. A trip to Quincy Jones’ private music club, where Ray Charles, Bono, Phil Collins and Stevie Wonder and all kinds of young stars of the time such as Queen Latifah, Heavy D and Melle Mel performed. Jook joints – African American pubs of days past in the south-east of the USA, where people would drink, eat and dance – often to live music.
Q’s Jook Joint shows the breadth of Jones’ oeuvre like hardly any other of his works. Starting with the first real song after the album’s intro: “Let The Good Times Roll”. The track brings together three legends of music history in just 2 minutes and 55 seconds: Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Bono. They groove to groovy beats, finely mixed guitar solos and pointed brass sections. What a start! It is clearly reminiscent of Jones’ big band past, when he toured jazz clubs with Ray Charles as a teenager. Any world star would probably have felt lucky to get just one of the numerous stars on Q’s Jook Joint to collaborate on an album. But Quincy Jones wasn’t just any world star. As early as the 92-second intro, 29 voices blur into an acoustic overture that swears us in on the album, including those of Barry White, Chaka Khan, Shaquille O’Neal, Gloria Estefan and Miles Davis, to name but a few.
The album comprises 15 tracks, including many cover versions of well-known songs which Jones gave a fresh polish, such as “Do Nothing ‘Till You Hear From Me”. A song from the 1940s, which Jones rearranged. He brought it into the modern age with deep bass lines, synth sounds and Phil Collins’ voice. At the same time, he retained the archaic brass sound from the early years – and thus the core of the song.
Also worthy of mention is “Stomp”, a song that Jones produced for The Brothers Johnson back in 1980. On Q’s Jook Joint, Jones took the song out of the world of disco and into the soundscapes of hip-hop. He brought rapper Coolio (known for “Gangsta’s Paradise”), among others, to the microphone and had jazz pianist Herbie Hancock play the keyboard part. Jones also took on Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You”. He combined hip-hop and funk elements and also had the song sung by the then renowned R&B artist Brandy. The album is a smorgasbord of soundscapes that no one else could have combined into such a coherent sound amalgamate. Quincy Jones could. So well, in fact, that Q’s Jook Joint won the Grammy Award for – of course – the best-produced album in 1997.
Find Quincy Jones – Q’s Jook Joint in discogs.com.