When you work with Ray Charles, Billy Eckstine and Frank Sinatra, and you tell them to jump without a net, you better know what you're talking about. Thank God I was ready for it.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of being prepared when facing great challenges, especially when working with talented individuals.
In this quote, Quincy Jones reflects on the necessity of being well-prepared when collaborating with brilliant artists like Ray Charles, Billy Eckstine, and Frank Sinatra. The phrase 'jump without a net' suggests taking risks without safety nets, highlighting the importance of confidence and readiness in high-stakes situations. Jones expresses gratitude for being equipped to meet the demands of such iconic musicians, implying that success requires both skill and courage to step outside one's comfort zone.
In practice
This quote could inspire musicians preparing for a big performance.
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.
If wed known we were going to be The Beatles wed have tried harder.
We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.
I think that music opens portals and doorways into unknown sectors that it takes courage to leap into. I always think that there's a potential that we all have, and we can emerge, rise up to this potential, when necessary. We have to be fearless, courageous, and draw upon wisdom that we think we don't have.
You can go to Europe, and there's no turnin' back - any parts of Europe. Wherever you are, there is no stop and go for the blues. The blues go but it don't stop.
I think one of the great things about being a musician is that you never stop learning.
I can sing very comfortably from my vantage point because a lot of the music was about a loss of innocence, there's innocence contained in you but there's also innocence in the process of being lost.
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