Michael Jackson needed some guidance. “The first time he came to my house, he said, 'I'm getting ready to make my first solo record for Epic Records,'” Quincy Jones recalled in Qthe 2001 autobiography. “Do you think you can help me find a producer?”
Jones, a musician of unparalleled range and talent who had already overseen or arranged records for Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Aretha Franklin, ended up filling the role himself – over the objections of Jackson's record company, who considered the producer “too jazz”. ” Thanks to Jackson's collaborations with Jones Outside the Wall, Impressive work and Badthe two men are inextricably linked.
If there was a downside to helping Jackson become an icon and sell enough albums to populate a small planet, it's that this achievement often obscures the scope of Jones' accomplishments, diminishing his career in the late 1970s and 1980 in a single supporting role. Jackson needed Jones by his side to make the best music of his most classic period. But this dependence was not mutual: Jones' productions during this era – for the Johnson Brothers, George Benson, Chaka Khan and Donna Summer, among others – can hold their own against Jackson's best singles.
Jones' dance music is propulsive, but more than that, it soars. It makes sense that when Jackson appeared to defy the laws of physics by walking on national television in 1983, he did so in one of Jones' productions. There are many great discos, but there is only one handful of songs from this period, able to create the feeling that Jones reliably created: his productions seem to glide, enjoying the heady momentum of the rise, gleefully rejecting the ground the rest of us must rely on to create forward motion .
Jones made this look look easy. For him, production has always been a team effort. When preparing to work with Jackson, the producer assembled what he called the “killer Q posse,” a group of musicians where “everyone was a black belt master in their own category”: songwriter Rod Temperton, engineer Bruce Swedien, player of keyboards Greg Phillinganes, trumpeter/arranger Jerry Hey, bassist Louis Johnson, drummer John Robinson and percussionist Paulinho da Costa.
This team worked Outside the Wallwas released in the summer of 1979, and most of them also contributed to Rufus & Chaka Khan's Masterjamwhich was released later that year. All of Jones' powers are on display on “Any Love,” the latest album's second track, an indictment of a playboy — “You don't really love deep down,” Khan quips — that's as wild as it is danceable. On the first verse, the drums march stiffly, while the bass is as rousing as Cad Khan's goals, rudely popping and ostentatiously entering the chorus. Jones gradually cranks up the power, adding brass and a string section that jiggles and jabs dramatically. This paves the way for a blistering blast from Khan, the kind of vocal bulldozing that Jackson, in his more nuanced recording, couldn't match.
The following year, the “killer Q posse” returned on a pair of Jones-produced albums, both aimed at conquering the late-night hours – Brothers Johnson's Light up the night and George Benson Give Me the Night. “Closer to the One That You Love,” from the former, is a complex, languid wonder, with a sudden, vertigo-inducing vocal ascent from singer George Johnson. And up Give Me the Nightboth of them the title trackk — which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 — and “Love X Love” they're snappy and squishy, with guitar riffs that ride over pounding beats like smooth pebbles skittering across a pond.
Summer turned to Jones and his pose for their magic in 1982, bottling the lightning with “Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger).” The soaring harmonies in the chorus, the nasty edge in the bass line, the way the horns add squeals to an already hot track. these are all indelible features of Jones' work.
“Love Is in Control” only reached No. 10 on the Hot 100, which would surely be a disappointment to its producer. “Number 1 is euphoric and addictive,” he wrote Q. “Numbers 2, 6 and 11 are my least favorite chart positions.” Of course, Jones thoroughly enjoyed that “euphoric and addictive” feeling afterwards Impressive work released in November 1982.
If Q Indicatively, Jones didn't seem too interested in his work with Summer and Benson and Kahn — or even his longtime relationship with the Johnson Brothers, for whom he produced four albums. Jackson, of course, looms large in the book. And Jones is proud of his work in jazz and instrumental music. But the vital albums he released in the 1970s and 1980s don't even merit a mention in his autobiography. Jones runs through these remarkable songs, which can still reliably light up the night, as if it were just another boring day at the office.
However, play “Love Is In Control” for a casual listener. They'll probably say, “that sounds like Michael Jackson!” Actually, he sounds like Quincy Jones.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/quincy-jones-producer-chaka-khan-george-benson-donna-summer-1235820122/
