Filmtracks: The Quincy Jones Saga #2 - 1962-65: Bossa nova + Sidney, Sidney, Sydney

The Quincy Jones Saga #2 - 1962-65: Bossa nova + Sidney, Sidney, Sydney

The Quincy Jones Saga #2 - 1962-65: Bossa nova + Sidney, Sidney, Sydney

(c-67-165-173-246.hsd1.il.comcast.
net)

Tuesday, February 25, 2025 (5:00 a.m.)

Last post on 1954-61 - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=139459
Refer to my profile for all posts in the series

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1962-65 in some ways was more of the same. More LPs with Billy Eckstine, Peggy Lee, and Sarah Vaughan. Nine big band records, including one featuring Sammy Davis Jr. and his first with Frank Sinatra, the latter responsible for his iconic version of Fly Me to the Moon. And two more albums with Dinah Washington - and there likely would’ve been more albums if she hadn’t died tragically from an accidental pill overdose in 1963. But Quincy knew the classic big band sound was getting rote, saying years later that “if you keep working in the same style all the time you get stale. I like to move around and stay fresh.” Thankfully, change also started to creep in during 1962-65 as Quincy revealed a defining aspect of his career: he rarely let himself get behind the curve on a new popular music style if there was a way to synthesize it with what he was already doing (or as Herbie Hancock later put it “he didn’t want to be left out of the loop”). And I’m not just talking about the electric guitar and Toots Thielemans’ harmonica playing on an instrumental Mancini album, though both would be consequential additions to Quincy’s ever-expanding sound palette.

His first classic record as a bandleader was 1962’s Big Band Bossa Nova featuring his arrangements of overseas bossa nova tunes, new takes on Cannonball Adderley’s Boogie Stop Shuffle and Lerner & Loewe’s On the Street Where You Live in that style, and one tune by ascendant composer Lalo Schifrin who also played piano on the album. The most enduring track is the outrageously catchy opener Soul Bossa Nova, a piece that found a second life as the Austin Powers theme after Mike Myers, having grown up hearing a licensed version of it in the Canadian game show Definition, demanded that be the sound that gave his 1997 spy comedy its mojo. More global influences followed on Terry Gibbs Plays Jewish Melodies in Jazztime, a unique entry in Quincy’s career (not much klezmer on those Sarah Vaughan records) even if it’s unclear how much he contributed aside from showing up to the sessions wearing a yarmulke, and Manos Hadjidakis’ serene song cycle Gioconda’s Smile which is generally considered a classic of 20th Century Greek music.

While Quincy oversaw Ella Fitzgerald’s revered Ella and Basie! as well as a number of Mercury recordings with Louis Armstrong across 1964-65, his output in these years was arguably more noteworthy for its big breaks including The Girl From Greece Sings for singer Nana Mouskouri, Bold Conceptions for pianist Bob Jones, and the debut songs for Lesely Gore, a 16-year old whose singing tape convinced Quincy to run through 200 demos with her before they settled on It’s My Party. The contemporary jazz-rock sound Quincy added to that song was a world away from the big band records and singer showcases he’d been cranking out. The single became the song of the summer in 1963 and Quincy’s first #1 tune on the charts. Quincy and Lesley teamed up for several other hits including the defiant You Don’t Own Me and the giddy Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows (written by a young Marvin Hamlisch who had the good fortune to be the nephew of Quincy’s dentist). After five albums together she largely worked with others for the rest of her career, never quite matching the heights of her early fame, though she did get an Oscar nomination for a song she wrote with her brother Michael for the hit 1980 musical Fame.

1965’s Quincy’s Got a Brand New Bag had him covering R&B and soul hits from James Brown, the Supremes, and the Four Tops, but it also signaled the end of an era. The guy involved in at least eight new song or instrumental records every year from 1962-65 had a hand in the neighborhood of ten total across 1966-72. A number of factors contributed to that, but the most important one was that by 1966 Quincy’s main job was no longer being VP at Mercury Records; he actually quit and moved to California after fearing a lucrative 20-year contract extension offer would turn into too much of a straightjacket. Quincy’s brand new bag was actually fulfilling his childhood dream of being a full-time film composer.

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In 1963, as he was working on his film The Pawnbroker about an emotionally distant Holocaust survivor navigating crime and his own memories in Harlem, director Sidney Lumet had been striking out in his search for someone new to film who could operate in orchestral and jazz modes. Classical composer John Cage didn’t want to work in movies. Jazz pianist John Lewis didn’t like the film. A meeting with bandleader Gil Evans didn’t go well. But then his wife (Lena Horne’s daughter) and his editor both mentioned Quincy, and a match was made. Quincy had two months to work on the score, getting advice from Henry Mancini along the way. “I got paid [$80,000 in 2024 dollars]. Cats are getting a million dollars a movie now. I didn’t care. I’d have paid [Sidney].”

Watch the first ten minutes of the movie to observe his fluency in symphonic and jazz worlds as both its idyllic flashback opening and later main title scene are wordless and entirely dependent on music. A semi-improvisational jam session including Dizzy Gillespie accounted for the jazz, including one bit invented during the sessions based on a rhythm Dizzy had picked in Brazil (perhaps the unused Rack ’Em Up). A beguiling orchestral theme exists on the other end of the spectrum, with Quincy torturing it at the end in a manner Alex North would’ve applauded. The film was shown at a film festival in summer 1964 but struggles with the MPAA and with finding a distributor meant it didn’t appear in U.S. theaters until 1965. Quincy put out a separate LP recording (featuring greats like Dave Grusin, Oliver Nelson, and Toots Thielemans, though not Dizzy) containing a good portion of the music heard in the film plus his Harlem theme in new song and instrumental versions. Lumet was thrilled, and the two teamed up on four future films over the next 15 years, notable as the director didn’t repeat with many composers during his career and made several films that had no original music at all.

Due to those delays, the next film featuring Quincy's music premiered only a month after The Pawnbroker debuted in the U.S., though he almost didn’t get that job when a producer on the Gregory Peck thriller Mirage objected that Quincy “was a Negro.” Henry Mancini wouldn’t hear of it and told the studio to give him the job. Quincy’s strong score blended jazz and orchestra just as The Pawnbroker did, though its personality was more sweeping and forceful. Closing out 1965 was The Slender Thread, the first feature directed by Sydney Pollack and also Quincy’s first film with Sidney Poitier, whose recommendation got Quincy the job. Like The Pawnbroker, it was a chatty film that didn’t need a ton of music but also had early wordless sequences requiring symphonic and jazz scoring. Intriguingly, while the electric organ had previously been an element of cool, here Quincy twisted that sound to represent paranoia and instability. The Slender Thread flopped, but it cemented a friendship with Quincy and Sidney Poitier; no other collaborator got more scores from him. And its score - not as memorable as his prior two, but still capable - proved that Quincy was no one trick pony.

He thought the phone would ring nonstop as a result. It did not.

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Next time: The forgotten breakthrough film, a legendary year, and the Moog.

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1962-65: Film scores
The Pawnbroker (1965) - ****
https://open.spotify.com/album/2Jdv79qcL3lMYKRfTG7aBL

Mirage (1965) - ****
https://open.spotify.com/album/4W6ko67mZgRJ1nZszfeBqy

Done for the Count Basie Orchestra
This Time by Basie https://open.spotify.com/album/4slYffY4KYPB2AiGVqZliX
Li’l Ol’ Groovemaker…Basie! https://open.spotify.com/album/6XETnaHe0is4YYTuFKEbnp
Our Shining Hour (with Sammy Davis Jr.) https://open.spotify.com/album/462a28648maHxBn4vq0qBJ
It Might as Well Be Swing (with Frank Sinatra) https://open.spotify.com/album/5lXF6AFeXG8UsIUfBJNsNH

Done for Dinah Washington
I Wanna Be Loved https://open.spotify.com/album/2C49E8kj9fymqSWRJ3PbRO
Tears and Laughter https://open.spotify.com/album/1IqiYg8kXt5nVY5fEz5dUD

Done for Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy on the French Riviera https://open.spotify.com/album/4DG9z5yoBt7OzdHVQ88isP
New Wave! https://open.spotify.com/album/4hGmuIZf2US0XzzplPki1I

Done for Sarah Vaughan
You're Mine You https://open.spotify.com/album/0ujsPg2ACp67nEdKlyHTvO
Sassy Swings the Tivoli https://open.spotify.com/album/7JbNihFCzJTExpgCbd3Apy
Vaughan with Voices https://open.spotify.com/album/2QHkEbZikclRNdz3Awzqxg
Vaughan Sings the Mancini Songbook https://open.spotify.com/album/5fHQM4UCmVBPe3EBa5ReLd
¡Viva! Vaughan https://open.spotify.com/album/4MjtzwTnhcU0HvgCPTXwgc

Done for Peggy Lee
Blues Cross Country https://open.spotify.com/album/3isX1PEl6UpPnrbk3MKrXr

Done for Billy Eckstine
Now Singing in 12 Great Movies https://open.spotify.com/album/5gz5OmrydeUG4ie6nj5Tmm

Done for Lesley Gore
I'll Cry If I Want To https://open.spotify.com/album/7KSrseQi4wJDUfMT4mxNo8
Lesley Gore Sings of Mixed-Up Hearts https://open.spotify.com/album/5eluBwSJ7uwDBizWCiazSJ
Boys, Boys, Boys https://open.spotify.com/album/2Fm1uZZvXkTyWfbgevjvkl
Girl Talk https://open.spotify.com/album/71XyPVJtymTaznEClAuB65
My Town, My Guy & Me https://open.spotify.com/album/4DcZO5ho0ECllxkudtl9yp

Done for Louis Armstrong
Louis https://open.spotify.com/album/3IJOiNhyBv6TJfAumYZv3B

Done for others
French Horns for My Lady https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n5OvP5AEVhH-3Q-88jVLVJCrmb0B2h1F8
The Girl from Greece Sings https://open.spotify.com/album/5EX4nWl8OXXVGyLeM4m6fV
Bold Conceptions https://open.spotify.com/album/7xFNmvIQTT8EhJRILux3uK
Jewish Melodies in Jazztime https://open.spotify.com/album/0gBbqxhfJWYvWtzGR3jXEb
Gioconda’s Smile https://open.spotify.com/album/4JI2QAWflnL4hw6L6kQAbn

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