Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.
QUINCY JONESI’m just a musician and a record producer.
More Quincy Jones Quotes
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All the jazz guys had interracial relationships, and even the ladies did. Over the years, interracial relationships have been a hip, almost defiant thing, a way of saying “Nobody can put a boundary around me.”
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I look back and say, “This must have been somebody else.” I am not going to tell you that when I was 4, I dreamed about all of this.
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I’m a tremendous believer and supporter in hip-hop and rap.
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Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.
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Editing while you’re writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.
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Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. ‘Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it’s done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.’
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You cannot get an A if you’re afraid of getting an F.
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They say a blind hog will find the acorn one day.
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After every war, there was a significant change in the music, and I can understand how that happened. If you participate in protecting the country, you think you can be part of it, but you come back home and it’s worse than ever.
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Greatness occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you have peace of mind.
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Prince a true artist in every sense of the world. Gone way too soon.
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Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.
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If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.
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I improvised my life along the way – I just moved step-by-step. And I knew that if I got better, something would happen.
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A person’s age can be determined by the degree of pain he experiences when he comes in contact with a new idea.
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If I don’t have a mother, I’ll let music be my mother.
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Not one ounce of my self worth depends on your acceptance of me.
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A lot of the guys were like that – Oscar Pettiford – they just took me under their wing, and that’s why I automatically help young people. I just love it, because they did that for me.
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I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.
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It’s the attitude about life, man. Looking at the light instead of the dark. Looking at love instead of fear.
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I don’t deserve a Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. But fifteen years ago, I had a brain operation and I didn’t deserve that, either. So I’ll keep it.
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I was raised in Chicago and I guess that was one of the special breeding grounds for gangsters of all colors. That was the Detroit of the gangster world. The car industry was thugs.
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What happens when you get a big break and you haven’t prepared yourself? That becomes the biggest mistake you’ve ever made. I see it happen all the time.
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I’ve always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, “Ain’t that the truth.”
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I learned real early why God gave us two ears and one mouth, because you’re supposed to listen twice as much as you talk.
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Billy Strayhorn wrote Multicolored Blue. Billy to me is the boss of the arrangers.
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