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WHAT I LEARNED FROM QUINCY JONES | Bill Gibson
After writing many books for Hal Leonard Publishing I had expressed an interest in helping other industry folks write books — folks who didn ’ t have the time or writing chops , but who had valuable information to share . I had a scheduled meeting with my developmental editor at Hal Leonard to touch base . When I arrived , I was greeted with this exhilarating , exciting , and completely out of the blue sentence , “ Quincy Jones ’ people are in the meeting room and Quincy wants you to help him with a book about producing !” I was honored , humbled , and a little freaked out because he and his engineer , Bruce Swedien , were the producer and engineer I paid the most attention to throughout my career ! The book was to be called ,
Q on Producing . It was released a couple years later in 2010 . Here ’ s a
trailer that ’ ll give you an idea of what ’ s in the book . I could go on and on , but let ’ s get right to it .
PREPARATION MEETS OPPORTUNITY Quincy is a phenomenon ! At 12 years old , he found his passion — MUSIC ! He was in Seattle at that time and ended up being mentored and molded by some of the best jazz musician of the era , including members of the Count Basie
Q on Producing by Quincy Jones with Bill Gibson and Lionel Hampton bands ! They all took to him like he was their own .
Quincy excelled at trumpet and before his last year at Garfield High in Seattle , Lionel Hampton hired him to go on the road with his band ! He accepted but once he got on the bus , Lionel ’ s wife commanded him to get off the bus and go finish school , which he did . He kept playing , arranging , and writing music through the rest of high school then went to Schindler College , which eventually changed its name to Berklee College of Music — many of Quincy ’ s current A-team musicians went to Berklee — Quincy call ’ s them , “ The usual suspects .”
He didn ’ t finish Schindler though because he received another offer to play with Lionel Hampton ’ s band — he took the gig this time . Through an interesting course of events , Jones