Interview: Why Is Quincy Jones Worried About Music’s Future And The Distortion Of Sound?

The abandonment of the album is an ironic bookend to a recording career spanning seven decades. He first entered the studio in 1956, another time when full length LPs were marginalized in favor of singles. The technological limitations were many, severely limiting his artistic canvas. “It couldn’t be over three minutes because [the disc] didn’t hold it,” he laughs now. And the turnaround time wasn’t exactly luxurious. “You had to do four 3-minute songs every four hours as an arranger or you didn’t work again!”

Obviously he’s come a long way since then, helping elevate the album to an art form along with the likes of The Beatles‘ producer George Martin, whom he considers a friend. While he admits that software has made it easier to realize creative ideas, he warns against using technology as a crutch. “If you don’t know anything about music and you use Pro-Tools, you will be working for the machine. But if you know music, the machine works for you. That’s what it’s designed for.”

If there’s anyone who knows music, it’s Jones. A child prodigy, he honed his skills at the age of 13 playing trumpet with jazz and swing bands around the Seattle area. Within a year he met a young pianist from Georgia named Ray Charles and the two formed a close bond. To this day he cites Charles as a major influence in his formative musical ambitions. After just a year at what is now Boston’s Berklee School Of Music, he was invited to tour with Lionel Hampton‘s band, and soon he was commissioned to arrange songs for heavy hitting stars like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Dinah Washington.

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