A Legend Passes
RIP music icon Quincy Jones, 91. Born in Chicago, his career spanned more than 70 years. He was nominated for 80 Grammys, winning 28 and the Legend Award. He left his studies after receiving an offer to tour as a trumpeter, arranger and pianist with Lionel Hampton. In NYC he received freelance commissions writing arrangements for Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Gene Krupa. He played second trumpet in the studio band that supported 21-year-old Elvis Presley in his first six television appearances. In 1957 he moved to Paris to study composition and theory and became the music director of a French record company. He toured Europe and said: “We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving. That’s when I discovered that there was music, and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.” Back in NY he became musical director of Mercury Records. He composed music for Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker (1964), the first of his nearly 40 major motion picture scores. He produced all four million-selling singles for Lesley Gore. He worked with just about all the greats. He produced It Might as Well Be Swing, which paired Frank Sinatra and the Count Basie Orchestra, an album that contains two of the greatest tracks in music history: Fly Me to the Moon and The Best Is Yet to Come. And of course there was Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the biggest selling album of all time. Seven of its nine tracks were released as singles. Each cracked the top ten, Beat It and Billie Jean hitting #1. He co-produced We Are the World, the eighth best-selling single of all time. He received numerous awards and honors. He was involved in charity and activism. He was married three times and had seven children with five different women. A legend. Thank you, maestro. Facts from Wiki, photo from Google Images:
Now we’re un-American as well as deplorable garbage, according to NY Queen of Corruption gov Kathy Hochul. Go find another sweetheart deal for your husband.
UK leadership gone mad, excerpt from a nypost.com editorial: “Axel Rudakubana, 18, a Rwandan immigrant who allegedly murdered three kids and injured others in a knife attack, is now revealed to have been in possession of an al-Qaeda training manual and had tried to make the deadly toxin ricin. But for voicing suspicions (now validated) that he was a terrorist, people were arrested.”
Among today’s celebrations, it’s Use Your Common Sense Day. “Manana, manana…”
Pleasant, partly cloudy day, fine for doing curbside business. My thanks to the woman who delivered about 50 books in Russian in a large gym bag that may come in handy down the road, and to the woman who overcompensated me for three cookbooks in Russky; and to the gentleman who bought four pieces of 3D art; and to the one who purchased Waiting to Exhale (1995) and Gangs of New York (2002) on DVD; and to the woman who took home a hardcover version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I left two bags of Russian books hidden in the garden.
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