The Quincy Jones Interview as read by Miles Gray 2.19.18

The Quincy Jones Interview as read by Miles Gray. Featuring Anna Hossnieh as the 'interviewer.'

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, guys, welcome to the Daily zeitgeis for today.
It is Monday, February nine. It is President's Day, and
we want to give you all, guys a special episode
of I Guess, a dramatic reading of the iconic Quincy
Jones Vulture interview, along with a couple added segments from
a great interview he also did with g Q magazine
the week prior to that that was also kind of

(00:21):
slept on. So we'll get some stuff that you've heard,
some stuff that you haven't heard. But let's not waste
any time. Let's get into it. I am Miles Gray.
I will be reading the part Quincy Jones, and I
am joined by Hi. This is Anna host Nan. I
will be reading the part of the interviewer. That is
amazing and just full disclosure, Anna is a professionally trained actor.

(00:43):
Um so I'm a little bit intimidated because her acting
talks so much better. But without further ado, this is Quincy.
So you worked with Michael Johnson more than anyone. He
wasn't What's something people don't understand about him? Okay, well,
I hate to get into this public but Michael stole
a lot of stuff and he stole a lot of

(01:03):
songs like State of Independence, Billy Jean Nose, Don't lie Man.
He was as Mackievellian as they come. How so greedy man, greedy,
don't stop t gad enough, Greg filling ganness Man. He
wrote the C section and that's not a procedure, the
C section of the song. And Michael should have given
him ten percent of the song. He wouldn't do it.
What about outside the music? What's misunderstood about Michael? I

(01:26):
used to kill Hi about the class surgery man, and
he'd always justified and say it was because of some
disease he had. Bullshit. How much were his problems wrapped
up with fa I mean the way he looked, and
he had a problem with his looks because his father
told him he was ugly and abused. And what do
you expect? It's such a strange struct position. How Michael's
music was so joyous, but his life just seems sadder
and more as time goes. Yes, but at the end

(01:48):
of Michael's problem, it was proper fault. And that problem
affects everyone. Doesn't matter if you're famous, big farmer making
oxycon and all that ship is a serious thing. I
was around the White House for eight years with the Clintons,
and I learned about how much influence Big Farmer has.
It's no joke. What's your sign? Man? Me too? It's
a great sign. You just mentioned the Clintons. We're friends

(02:09):
of yours. Why is there still such a visceral dislike
of them? What are other people not singing Hillary for example?
That you well, it's because there's a side of her.
When you keep secrets, they backfire, like what secret? And
this is something I shouldn't be talking about. You sure
seem to know a lot. I know too much, man,
what's something you wish you did it? Though? Who killed Kennedy?

(02:30):
Who did it? Joan Conna? The connection was there between
Sinatra and the mafia and Kennedy? I mean Joe Kennedy.
He was a bad man. He came to Frank to
have him talk to Jian Conna about getting votes. I've
heard this theory before. The mob helped win Illinois for Kennedy.
In Look, we shouldn't talk about this publicly. Where are
you from Toronto? I was at the Massy Hall show, really,

(02:52):
the Charlie Parker concert with Mingus and those guys. Yeah, man,
I saw the contract after the whole band made eleven dollars.
I'll never forget that. At the time, it was just
another gig. It wasn't historical like with Woodstock. Tito Plante
told me he wanted to go out to that gig.
Those festivals ain't my thing. See Elon Musk keeps trying
to get me to go to Burning Man. No thank you.
But who knew that wood Stock would turn out to

(03:12):
what it would be? You know, Jimmy Hendricks was out
there fucking up the National Anthem. Wasn't Hendricks supposed to
play on the Cool Matari, but he was supposed to
play on my album, and he chickened out that he
was nervous to play with two Steelman's and Herbie Hancock,
Hubrew Lewis, Roland Kirk. Those are some scary motherfucker's. Okay
Tooth is one of the greatest soloists that ever fucking lived,
and the cast on my records were the baddest cast

(03:34):
in the world. And Hendricks and he didn't want to
play with them. What did you think when you first
heard rock and rock ain't nothing but a white version
of rhythm and blues? Motherfucker? You know. I met Paul
McCartney when he was twenty one. What were your first
impressions of the thought they were the worst musicians in
the world. They were no playing, motherfucker's Paul was the
worst bass player I ever heard, and Ringo don't even

(03:54):
talk about it. I remember once we were in the
studio with George Martin and Ringo had taken three hours
for a or bar thing. He was trying to fix
on a song and he couldn't get it. We said, mate,
why don't you go get some loggery line so Shepherd's
Pie and take an hour and a half and relax
a little bit. So he did, and we call Ronnie Varelli,
a jazz drummer. Okay, Ronnie came in for fifteen minutes
and pull it up. And Ringo comes back and says, George,

(04:17):
can you play back to me one more time? So
George did, and Ringo says that didn't sound too bad,
And I said, yeah, motherfucker, because it ain't you great
guy though we're already rocky SI you thought were good?
Who I used to like Clapton's band, what were they called? Yeah?
They could play, but you know who sings and plays

(04:37):
just like Hendrix, Paul Allen stopping the Microsoft. Yeah, man,
I went on a trip on his yacht and he
had David Crosby, Joe Walsh, Sean Lennon, all those crazy motherfucker's.
Then on the last two days, Stevie Wonder came out
with his band and made Paul come up and play
with him. He is good man. You hang out on
these elite social circles and doing good has always been

(04:57):
important too. But are you seeing as much concerned for
the or as you'd like from the ultra rich. No,
the rich aren't doing enough. They don't care. I came
from the street, and I care about these kids who
don't have enough because I feel I'm one of them.
See these other people, they don't know what it feels
like to be born, so they don't care. You ever had, Sashimi.
Are we in a better place as a country than
we were when you started doing humanitarian work fifty years ago? No?

(05:20):
You see where the worst we've ever been. But that's
why we're seeing people try and fix it. Feminism. Women
are saying they're not gonna take it anymore. Racism, people
are fighting it. God is pushing the bad in our face.
To make people fight back. We've obviously been learning more
lately about how corrosive the entertainment can be for women.
As someone who's worked in that business at the highest

(05:40):
levels for so many years, do all the recent revelations
come as a surprise. No, Man, women had to put
up with that fucked up ship. Women and brothers. See,
we're both dealing with the glass cinemas. But what about
the alleged behavior of a friend of yours like Phil
cost I don't know. Is it hard to square what
he's been accused of with the person you know? See?
It was all of them, Ratt, Ratner, Weinstein, Man, White Stee.

(06:00):
He's a job motherfucker wouldn't return my five calls, and
he's a fucking bully? What about Cosby? What about it?
For the allegations of surprise to man, we can't talk
about this in public, man, I'm sorry to jump around. Man,
be a pisces. Jam Let me ask you about someone
completely different. You really Matt Lenny rite Installed. I wouldn't
make it up. I've been a fan of her since
trying for the Will. I mean that woman was one

(06:22):
of the greatest filmmakers that ever lived. She knew I
was a fan. And when I was over there in Berlin,
uh Nastagi was doing a film with then Venders. She
came to the hotel one day and there was an invitation.
She wanted me to have lunch with her. And that's
the most incredible meeting I ever had in my life
because I knew all about her. She was Girbel's girlfriend. Okay,
he was like the publicist of the Third Right, you know,

(06:44):
and she looked like Hetty Lamar when she was young.
She said she used two hundred eleven cameras. I said why.
She says, we were doing a regroupment film for Hitler.
I think I'm gonna tell Hitler one more time. Made
off and then she told me something that really hit home.
She told me everybody in the Third Right was on cocaine.
See how worked for pimps when I was eleven years old,
and they used to do that too. They take cocaine

(07:05):
because it raised the propensity for violence from the primate brain.
And that's the primate in us, the four fs, Fright, Fight, Flight,
and Funk. I never understood why sex and violence were
so commercial. It's the primate brain. Baby, The animal brain
is heavy cocaine. Of course, man, she was Gebel's girlfriend,
So how does she think it affected hit with her?

(07:26):
Well ship, the history proves how it affected him. He
killed every motherfucker he could see. You think a huge
part of the horror Nazism was just down to cocaine.
I think it had a lot to do with it.
When she said that, it opened up a door for
me because I've been around that ship my whole life.
Some people would be judgmental about having lunch with someone
that was so closely involved with the Nazi Party. Oh
come on, give me a fucking break, man, please. This
is a human being, man, and a very special human being.

(07:49):
It was never political. It was about her passion for
her profession. I separate the art from the artist. Still,
I wonder if that no, because she never got involved. Okay,
she never got passionate about what the Third Reich was doing.
She wasn't into it, I could tell. I mean, you
have to read between the lines too. You watch this
A is us. If you could snap your fingers and
fix one problem in the country, what would it be? Racism?

(08:12):
I've been watching a long time the thirties too. Now
we've come a long way but we've got a long
way to go to the South has always been sucked up,
but you know where you stand. The racism in the
North is disguised. You never know where you stand. That's
why what's happening now is good because people are saying
they're racist. Who didn't used to say it? Now we
know what stirred everything up. This is it all about
trump Man's Trump and uneducated rednecks, and Trump is just

(08:35):
telling them what they want to hear. I used to
hang out with him. He's a crazy motherfucker, limited mentally,
a megalomaniac and narcissistic. I can't stand him. I used
to date ave uncle. You know, Yes, sir, twelve years ago,
Tommy Hill Figger, who was working with my daughter Codada,
said Ivanka wants to have dinner with you. I said,
no problem. She's a fine motherfucker. She had the most
beautiful legs I ever saw in my life. Wrong, father, though,

(08:58):
who'd your something? I don't think she should run. I
mean she didn't have the chops for it. If you
haven't been governor of a state, or the CEO of
a company or a military general, you don't know how
to lead people. She is the CEO of a company. Okay, well,
a symphony conductor knows more about how to lead the
most business people more than Trump does. He doesn't know ship.
I mean, someone who knows about real leadership wouldn't have

(09:20):
as many people against him like he does. He's a
fucking idiot. You get a sudoku. It's Hollywood is bad
with racist the rest of the country. I know that
when you started scoring films, you'd hear producers say things
like you didn't want to lose the score, which was
clearly Are you still encountering that kind of racism? And
it's still fund up nineteen sixty four. When I was
in Vegas, Uh, there were places I wasn't supposed to

(09:41):
go because I was black. But Frank Sinatra he fixed
that for me. It takes individual efforts like that to
change things. It takes white people to say to other
white people, do you really want to live as a racist?
Is that really what you will believe? But every place
is different. When I go to Dublin, Bono makes me
stay at his castle because Ireland is so racist. I mean,
bon it was my brother man he named his son
after me. Still music, No, I don't know I love

(10:06):
Bondo with all my heart, but there's too much pressure
on the band. He's doing good work all over the world.
Working with him and Bob Geldof on Debt Relief was
one of the greatest things I ever did. It's up
there with We Are the World. There's a small your
memoir about how the rocknsisis sing on We Are the
World work riping about the songs there in that story.
It wasn't the rockers. It was Cindy Lockers. Okay. She

(10:28):
had a manager come over to me and say, the
rockers don't like the song. I know how that ship works.
We want to see Springsteen, Polly Notes, Billy Joe and
all those casts. They said, we love the song. So
I said to Lopper, okay, you can just get your
shipped over where they leave. And she was sucking up
every take because her necklace, a bracelet, whatever, the fund
was rattling in the microphone. It was just her that

(10:49):
had the problem. What's something you've worked on that should
have been bigger? What are you talking about? I never
had that problem. See, they were all big musician who
deserved come man, The Brothers, Johnson, James Ingram, Tevin Campbell,
every one of them went straight through the roof. You
started digging professionally at eight. What was life on the

(11:10):
road like? Look the band bus with Lionah Hampton got
thirty three people on the front half of the right side.
We call them the Holy Rollers, the we smokers behind them.
That's us. The boozers here and the junkies there. And
every time we go to Detroit at the Majestic Hotel
standing in front with his Italian shipped on the amberglasses
Malcolm X Detroit Red. That's where we bought our dope.

(11:30):
It was before he went to prison. Yeah, he was
the dope dealer. That's how he went to prison. So
you would personally buy drug personally ship. Everybody in the
band bought it. The junkies used to call cocaine girl
and heroin boy. That's because they said cocaine would take
you from your woman. So why was heroin because masculine,
you know, it's a strong drug and it won't bother

(11:51):
you as long as you give it everything it wants.
But he wants more and more all the time. Did
you try everything over the years, I have tried every
Hamill nitrate met The dream bends a dream everything. I mean,
Ray had me on heroin for five months. How old
were you? I mean yeah, I started shooting and then

(12:11):
I fell down five flights of stairs and I said,
that ain't gonna work. And it's the best thing that
ever happened to me. Because when I was in New York,
I was hanging out with Howard McGee and Earl Coleman
and Charlie Parker and Ship. I would have been a
junkie for life. Was it easy to stop? I fell
down five flights of stairs. Brother, I don't need any
more inspiration than that. Ship. It's the last time I
did it, because I can stop like a motherfucker anything cigarettes, alcohol,

(12:35):
I just stopped. Man. Obviously, Ray Charles carried on for
a long time. Oh please. He went on thirty years
with hero wins, and then the police told him he
couldn't get his license to play clubs unless he stopped,
and he did, and the thirty two clubs gave him
the licensees back, and then he started on black coffee
and Dutch bowls gin twenty five years. When about it?

(12:55):
And I wouldn't talk. Let me talk about what I've
seen him shooting in his testicles, man, because Heroin is
a strange drug. Ray all of his veins were dried
up in black and he's shooting himself in the testicles. Man, yeah, yeah,
the guy do it. It was horrible. Are you fun
with sacred geometry? From a strictly musical personal what have
you done that you're most proud of? Man? That anything

(13:16):
I can feel? I can notate musically, I mean not
many people can do that. I can make a band
play like a singer sings. That's what arranging is, and
it's a great gift. I wouldn't trade it for ship.
Do you hear the spirit? No? Okay, because people gave
it up to chase money. When you go after sir,
rock vodka and fat Farm and all that ship, God
walks out of the room. And I have never in

(13:37):
my life made music for money or fame, not even thriller.
No way. Guy walks out the room when you thinking
about money, and you could spend a million dollars on
a piano part and it won't make you a million
dollars back. This is not how it works because their
innovation happening in modern hell. No, it's just loops and beats.
It rhymes, it looks what is there for me to

(14:00):
learn from that? There ain't no fucking songs. The song
is the power. You see, the singer is the fucking messenger.
The greatest singer in the world cannot save a bad song.
I learned that fifty years ago, and it's the single
greatest lesson I have ever learned as a producer. If
you don't have a great song, it doesn't matter what
else you put around it. What about your greatest musical innovation?
That's everything I've done, everything you've done, everything was something

(14:22):
to be proud of. Absolutely, It's been an amazing contrast
of genre. Since I was very young, I played all
kinds of music, far miss form music of Nuguila. You
know what I'm saying, Susan Marches. Have you heard the
Royal wells leers? Okay, strip club music, jazz pop, everything.
I don't have to learn to do a thing to do?
Michael Jackson, what would account for the songs being less

(14:43):
good than they used to be? It's the mentality of
the people making the music. See, producers now are ignoring
all the musical principles of the previous generations. It's a
joke now, That's not the way it works. You're supposed
to use everything from the past. If you know where
you come from, it's easier to get where you're going.
You need to understand music to touch people and become
the soundtrack to their lives. Can I tell you one

(15:04):
of the greatest moments in my life. It was the
first time they celebrated Dr King's birthday and watching the
d C and Stevie Wonder was in charge and asked
me to be the musical director. After the performance, we
went to a reception and three ladies came over. The
older lady had a Sinatra at the sands. I arranged
that her daughter had my album The Dude, and then
that lady's daughter had Thriller. Three generations of women said
those were their favorite records that touched me so much

(15:26):
in my ego. Do you see a future from the
music business? There isn't a music business anymore. If these
people paid attention to Sean Fanning twenty years ago, we
wouldn't be in this mess. But the music business is
still too full of these old school beingcounters. You can't
be like that. You can't be one of these back
in my day people you're talking about. But respectfully, don't

(15:46):
some of your thoughts about music fall into the category
of cracting my day. Okay, Look, musical principles exist, man. Now,
Musicians today they can't go all the way with the
music because they haven't done their homework with the left brain.
Music is a motion and science. You don't have to
practice emotion because that comes naturally. Technique is different. If
you can't get your finger between three and four and

(16:06):
seven and eight on the piano, you can't play. Are
you gonna only get so far without technique? And people
limit themselves musically, Man, do these musicians no tango, makumba music, samba, bossa,
nova salsa? Maybe tell you something, man. Brandon used to
go chota dancing with us, and he could dance his
ass off. And he was the most charming motherfucker you

(16:27):
have ever met. And he sucked anything anything. He fucked
a mailbox, James Baldwin, Richard pryor, Marvin Gaye. He slept
with them. How do you know that? Come on, man,
he did not give a funk. You like Brazilian music, Yeah,
but I don't know how much. Look you better, Gil
and Catano also up there, the Kings. You know, I
visit the favelas every year, and those motherfucker's have a

(16:49):
hard life. They're tough. Though you think our ship in
America is bad, it's worse there. As a young man,
he used to carry around a thirty Yeah, yeah, is practice. Okay,
let me ask you, huh. In your memoir there's a
section where you talk about being a dog. How come
you think? I don't know? Probably because I didn't have

(17:11):
a mother. And the big bands, that's like the School
of the Dogs, traveling bands every fucking night. It was
like the girls coming through NeiMa Marcus. Oh. I like
trumpet players, I like sax players, I like guitar players.
Read a Hayworth, all of them. It was unbelievable, man.
You know, Frank was Allas trying to put me up
with Marilyn Monroe. For Marilyn Monroe, man had a chest
look like pairs, man. So let's not talk about it. Man,

(17:34):
Come on, we killed it. You know. I came up
with the two wildest motherfucker's on the planet, Ray Charles
and Frank Sinatra. Come on, they were good looking guys,
they had all the girls they wanted, and they showed
you how to deal with it. So the Ruby Rosa
the king of the playboys. Amazing man, what a guy
you know? Elevin inch Dong and in Paris to this day,
you go to a shell, let me louis the way

(17:55):
they will come over to you with a pepper shaker
and say, here's your ruby Rosa. Okay. He always used
to say, Quincy, it's by the head, not the bed.
Women give up pussy to get loved. Men give up
love to get pussy. And that's the way it works.
You know, all these women were available all over the world.
I did a tour with NAC but my band we
couldn't stop the girls. It's incredible. I mean, women are treaped. Man.

(18:17):
Do you ever wish you'd been a different way? Be
ended too? I don't regret ship. Thank you. Drink. A

(20:27):
captain contains the stacks to h