Jazz has the power to make men forget their differences and come together... Jazz is the personification of transforming overwhelmingly negative circumstances into freedom, friendship, hope, and dignity.
Interpretation
Jazz unites people by transcending their differences, offering them freedom and hope through its expression.
Quincy Jones highlights the transformative power of jazz music, emphasizing how it has the ability to bring people together despite their differences. He suggests that through jazz, individuals can experience freedom and foster friendships, even in the face of negative circumstances, ultimately promoting dignity and hope.
In practice
In a speech about cultural events, you might say, 'As Quincy Jones said, jazz has the power to make men forget their differences and come together.'
Just blow in it and sound bad for about a year and then make it sound a little bit better, and you get a little band together, and then you get a few jobs. You take four guys that sound half bad, but if they're 25 percent each, they can give 100 percent, you know?
Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.
When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.
You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.
I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.
I tell my kids and I tell proteges, always have humility when you create and grace when you succeed, because it's not about you. You are a terminal for a higher power. As soon as you accept that, you can do it forever.
Minneapolis just embraced me. There are a lot of weirdos here. It's awesome, because I'm a weirdo. Thankfully, the city embraced me with open arms. A lot about Minneapolis helped carve my musicality and open my eyes. The whole town is so open-minded compared to like, you know, Texas.
It's easy to get sidetracked with technology, and that is the danger, but ultimately you have to see what works with the music and what doesn't. In a lot of cases, less is more. In most cases, less is more.
At night in the country, you'd be surprised how that music carries. You could hear my guitar way before you get to the house, and you could hear the peoples hollerin' and screamin'.
Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.
My third day playing saxophone, I was in front of a congregation. I still didn't know the names of all the notes. I was playing by ear, following along, but it was such an encouraging environment, I couldn't fail. It was all, 'Yeah baby, you sound real good' no matter what you play. It was a great way to learn.
I think I'm going to be making country records for as long as I can see into the future. It's much more down-home and real.
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