How many hundreds of women had he banged by this point? You should keep a running tally in these posts.

> Despite challenging origins - including growing up in Chicago in the 1930s
> (“my father was a carpenter for the most notorious Black gangsters”) and
> having a schizophrenic mother institutionalized when he was seven (“she
> thought that jazz music is for the devil”) - Quincy Jones had already led
> a charmed musical life by his early 20s. He’d received trumpet lessons
> from Clark Terry, got to know Ray Charles and Count Basie, backed up
> Billie Holliday and Billy Eckstine, and toured the world with Lionel
> Hampton. By 1953 he was back in New York, first arranging for Count Basie
> and saxophonist James Moody before getting regular gigs arranging for
> Mercury Records. He quickly became a go-to guy for making musicians sound
> good on early albums, the most notable of those being The Great Ray
> Charles which included Charles’ hit cover of Doodlin’ and
> Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley which mixed original
> compositions with Quincy’s arrangements of jazz standards including a
> rollicking take on Art Hickman’s Rose Room.

> More on his upbringing here - https://youtu.be/56C80JZtIhs

> Quincy also played trumpet on two Dizzy Gillespie albums whilst serving as
> the music director for Dizzy’s 1956 international tours that doubled as
> cultural diplomacy organized by the U.S. State Department. “Some of these
> people had never seen Western instruments before.” Pianist Billy Taylor
> had Quincy arrange the songs from a recent Tony-winning smash hit musical
> on the delightful My Fair Lady Loves Jazz. In the prime of
> her career singer Dinah Washington asked Quincy to arrange her sublime
> album For Those in Love (Quincy in 2007: “My baby…she got me
> in the record business”). And in only a few years he had the cache to be
> the bandleader on his own album: 1957’s slinky smooth This Is How I
> Feel About Jazz, where the snaps and claps Quincy added to
> Adderley’s Sermonette served as a preview of the unconventional
> percussion ensembles he’d use on several films.

> 1958 was a lighter release year with just two albums, but his life was no
> less busy as the prior year he’d moved to Paris, not only to work for
> Eddie and Nicole Barclay’s eponymous record company (alongside Michel
> Legrand) but also - believing that the U.S. wouldn’t offer opportunities
> for a Black man to learn to write for strings - to study composition under
> Nadia Boulanger, who had been recommended by Lalo Schifrin when Quincy ran
> into him on his 1956 global tour. There was also a benefit concert Grace
> Kelly commissioned in Monaco where Quincy (conducting the 55-person
> Barclay Records house band) had the good fortune to meet Frank Sinatra.
> Sinatra became one of Quincy’s best friends, with the singer later
> breaking down racial barriers for him in Las Vegas and gifting him a ring
> with his family crest from Sicily. But at this point Sinatra was still
> working extensively with arranger Nelson Riddle and wouldn’t record with
> Quincy until the mid-60s when he was consciously trying to adjust his
> style.

> -----

> If 1958 was an album respite, 1959-1961 was an onslaught. Quincy toured
> around the world with bands. An abundance of big band albums appeared, the
> best of those being the exciting The Birth of a Band! and
> the boisterous Around the World. And there were two more Ray
> Charles albums: 1959’s The Genius of Ray Charles had two
> tracks arranged by Quincy and won four Grammy awards, while 1961’s
> Genius + Soul = Jazz had Quincy split arranging duties with
> Ralph Burns (future Oscar winner for the film adaptation of
> Cabaret) and now stands as one of the truly essential Ray Charles
> albums assuming you don’t mind the frequent sound of an electric organ.
> Quincy’s orchestral training also started to pay off quickly. There were
> the shimmering, idyllic sounds accompanying the voice of Sarah Vaughan in
> Vaughan and Violins, with Misty a notable highlight.
> He conducted the orchestra for Under Paris Skies, singer
> Andy Williams’ knockout final album for Cadence Records. And there was the
> expansive sound on If You Go for Peggy Lee, one of America’s
> biggest singing stars of the 1940s and 50s.

> 1960 appearance on Swiss TV - https://youtu.be/8uy13yCrMHw
> 1961 appearance on Belgian TV - https://youtu.be/ce63rmIIRxg

> There was also The King of the Gospel Singers with rocker -
> and occasionally fervent born-again Christian - Richard Penniman, known
> professionally as Little Richard. Quincy’s orchestra performed alongside
> Richard and a gospel choir, and Quincy co-wrote some of the tracks, but
> this is better known as the first album where Quincy’s main role was that
> of a producer. “Being on the other side of the glass is a very funny
> position. You’re the traffic director of another person’s soul.” The album
> was a big success and has lost none of its potency today. Richard credited
> it for (sorry) resurrecting his career, and Quincy later commented that
> Richard had the most impressive voice of anyone he ever worked with.

> Quincy also started putting out concert albums. Free and Easy: Live
> at Sweden 1960 is for completists only thanks to inconsistent
> volume levels. A nightclub performance recorded At Basin Street
> East - on a night Duke Ellington was in the audience! - plays
> much better on album by comparison, though be advised it focuses on
> featured vocalist Billy Eckstine. You can’t go wrong with The Great
> Wide World of Quincy Jones Live (in Zurich!) or Newport
> ‘61, the latter a kind of greatest hits concert covering tunes
> from five prior Quincy albums - with one notable exception to be mentioned
> later. Alas, Quincy’s touring band spent much more than it took in, and
> “it ended with my band and I being stranded in Paris, completely broke.”
> Deep in debt, he found rescue via Mercury Records boss Irving Green, who
> gave Quincy a personal loan - reportedly close to $1M in 2024 dollars -
> and a talent development role that two years later became a Vice President
> job at the label, making Quincy the first Black executive of a major New
> York music company (Quincy also sold the publishing rights to his earlier
> works, rights he bought back decades later). Whether because he was trying
> to pay off that debt or because he already worked almost nonstop, Quincy
> would maintain a torrid pace for the next 13 years. It almost killed him.

> -----

> Buried in the Newport album was The Boy in the Tree (Belly
> Roll on later albums). It revealed, unbeknownst to pretty much
> everyone back in America, that Quincy had scored his first film.

> Swedish director Arne Sucksdorff’s daughter, a fan of Quincy‘s music,
> tracked him down at a restaurant while he was on tour and asked him to
> write the score for her father’s film The Boy in the Tree about a
> troubled teen who gets caught up with some poachers. Quincy had dreamed of
> being a film composer as a kid and thus needed no convincing to say yes.
> Fellow Barclay Records resident composer Michel Legrand gave him some
> advice as he worked on it. While a big band dominated the main titles, the
> rest of the score went in more intriguing directions. Quincy added a
> wordless female vocal that floated elegantly yet hauntingly over the
> ensemble, halfway between Quincy’s arrangement of Je Voudrais from
> his 1960 instrumental record Twilight Time and something
> Ennio Morricone might’ve written. What Quincy called a crucifixion march
> blended in relentless percussion hits and wild flute sounds, turning into
> a deranged bolero. And brawnier material suggested Quincy was familiar
> with the jazz-adjacent scores Alex North and Elmer Bernstein wrote for
> Hollywood in the 1950s.

> It was a solid film debut, and the only thing wrong with it was that there
> wasn’t more of it. Quincy released 11 minutes on an EP credited to him
> “and his Swedish Orchestra,” and it’s unclear if the film even required
> more music than that as the movie appears to have no digital / streaming
> presence, with a quick search on my part only turning an expensive foreign
> 6-DVD set of Sucksdorff films. Quincy even expressed amazement a few years
> ago on Facebook that his team was able to find a copy of the movie.

> -----

> Next time: Bossa nova, a star is born, and three guys with the same name.

> -----

> 1954-61: Film scores
> The Boy in the Tree (1961) - ****
> https://open.spotify.com/album/5JneFCUEuxGrO70lErUC7N
>
>
> 1954-61: The essential albums
> Julian “Cannonball” Adderley
> https://open.spotify.com/album/18JHKcwCBtOfCGmOB7hXx8
> For Those in Love
> https://open.spotify.com/album/79co4mGqrQdDK93j5ZuqH2
> My Fair Lady Loves Jazz
> https://open.spotify.com/album/2TmXltw0tlt569GIdo9KnC
> This Is How I Feel About Jazz
> https://open.spotify.com/album/2JN9W6snU2SvqW7ER0Vknk
> The Birth of a Band!
> https://open.spotify.com/album/3iSSZ5osoZuESbwMZHUeW5
> Under Paris Skies
> https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mh8yt8v3-kr9aBwTL7oaLmEbYMjImKWe8
> Around the World
> https://open.spotify.com/album/1qaWE3rZ4Fiz36Uf2uH5ua
> Genius + Soul = Jazz
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wraJLUuaHG8
> The King of the Gospel Singers
> https://open.spotify.com/album/5ain8F2Zb0cvZhLlPMDY4j
>
>
> 1954-61: Other albums
> Quincy’s
> Jazz Abroad
> https://open.spotify.com/album/1DWLdf4OEK96kgNNozY1i0
> Go West, Man!
> https://open.spotify.com/album/3BwTX3tATEIJJfeCnb541Q
> Quincy’s Home Again
> https://open.spotify.com/album/2vigrx6Z9NDNefwGSeoYE8
> The Great Wide World of Quincy Jones
> https://open.spotify.com/album/6ImAcoRw1aP6sAiAu8zUPa
> Free and Easy: Live in Sweden 1960
> https://open.spotify.com/album/1Xvy54co1WnMYubKVSzhOv
> I Dig Dancers
> https://open.spotify.com/album/3r9jPtW589yBQBsjbg5I0k
> Great Wide World Live (in Zurich!)
> https://open.spotify.com/album/2zFeeZQVaFMRV2swJXFjJx
> Newport '61
> https://open.spotify.com/album/4e4p9rsjyoj5mVYj3SYhNb

> Done for record producer Eddie Barclay
> Et Voilà!
> https://open.spotify.com/album/1EqYPbltAoA6GXQNHXAwC3
> Confetti
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mgfTktGDaQVlixIaJrFMoWLTlzKEW5J18
> Twilight Time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K69vT1q-VlQ

> Done for Ray Charles
> The Great Ray Charles
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0dNo07hfdR3IkIhRJt813D
> The Genius of Ray Charles
> https://open.spotify.com/album/4GFWnwli2cVOBp2G1zqhV1

> Done for Art Farmer
> Work of Art / The Art Farmer Septet
> https://open.spotify.com/album/59HssLevdeB3hEV2IofxqU
> Last Night When We Were Young: title track
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLPLDPatd_U

> Done for Milt Jackson
> Plenty, Plenty Soul
> https://open.spotify.com/album/3VyJ1CdUiAp5Fblq1InswX
> The Ballad Artistry of Milt Jackson
> https://open.spotify.com/album/1tBeqO4IDXxU7zTV4Jpaec

> Done for Sarah Vaughan
> Vaughan and Violins
> https://open.spotify.com/album/2AF2R3VOH6dSunwgKXdnHl

> Done for Dinah Washington
> The Swingin’ Miss “D”
> https://open.spotify.com/album/3bcMIa3cWyX0MQij43hrru

> Done for Peggy Lee
> If You Go
> https://open.spotify.com/album/1rrPlmDh3nNWzLTOgdm0zp

> Done for Billy Eckstine
> At Basin Street East
> https://open.spotify.com/album/31eoUIw6IzTglygfXxRAdn

> Done for the Count Basie Orchestra
> Basie One More Time
> https://open.spotify.com/album/0zv2tLhBQo1Gna1pXppT7A

> Done for others
> Moods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sD9c-abXEM
> Clark Terry
> https://open.spotify.com/album/4eKLvhbYEZ5BsbvUbk4oAi
> Introducing Jimmy Cleveland and His All Stars
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kbwFUHX8BM
> Helen Merrill
> https://open.spotify.com/album/5ilzjsH4ER5ZaytJwnmn3C
> Sonny Stitt Plays Arrangements from the Pen of Quincy Jones
> https://open.spotify.com/album/5DDLqs1JsR7ZfnuoqLL5dB
> Quincy - Here We Come
> https://open.spotify.com/album/5ioLlvIO3CZOmxvsQmGRZ4
> The Double Six Meet Quincy Jones
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvqO2T37q5w