Category: Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones – Q´s Jook Joint (1995)

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Q’s Jook Joint is an album by Quincy Jones that was released by Qwest Records. The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard jazz albums chart on December 30, 1995. Q’s Jook Joint won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical in 1997.

The multi-talented Quincy Jones has excelled at idiomatic combinations in his albums since the ’60s, when his mix-and-match soundtracks for television and films alerted everyone that he’d switched from a pure jazz mode to a populist trend.

Q’s Jook Joint blends the latest in hip-hop-flavored productions with sleek urban ballads, vintage standards, and derivative pieces; everything’s superbly crafted, though few songs are as exciting in their performance or daring in their conception as past Jones epics like Gula Matari or the score from Roots. Still, you can’t fault Jones for his choice of musical collaborators: everyone from newcomer Tamia to longtime stars like Ray Charles, rappers, instrumentalists, male and female vocalists, percussionists, and toasters.
The CD really conveys the seamless quality one gets from attending a juke joint, though it lacks the dirt-floor grit or blues fervor of traditional Southern and chitlin circuit hangouts. But no one’s more knowledgeable about the spectrum of African-American music, nor better able to communicate it via disc, than Quincy Jones.

A lot of the songs on this album had been recorded by Q before, some more than once. All the tracks are produced as usual with care, almost to the point of over-production; one wouldn’t expect anything less than that on a Quincy Jones album.
For anybody else, Q’s Jook Joint would have been a smash. Not for Q, though, not at all. The idea to reload old hits from the glamor days with old friends and survivors of the biz was already successfully carried out on Back On The Block – and then Q was right on time as a lot of those stars passed away soon after the recording (Miles, Ella, Sarah).

And now, at a time when the man starts to retreat from active participation in show biz, he decides to record – Rock with You –  he recorded it with Michael Jackson, why would he expect to top that? He doesn’t. Is It Love That We’re Missing? from his Mellow Madness album already appeared on compilations, and it’s really not such a great song. So it goes on with almost the entire set. It would have been so much more creative for Q to reconsider his Jazz roots…

One song, however, has that old Quincy Jones magic, At The End Of The Day: casually loaded with heavies like Barry White and Take 6, it features Toots Thielemans at the top of his powers. His harmonica is not from this world.

Looking back to this release, the song At The End Of The Day sounds like an aptly titled swan song for Q’s true gifts. The R&B releases that followed were totally superfluous, as far as creativity is concerned. (There was a release, the labor of love, Basie & Beyond, from the year 2000, that was worth the effort, but that’s another story).

Track listing

1   “Jook Joint” (Intro)  (feat. Kid Capri, James Moody, Stevie Wonder, Lester Young, Brandy, Funkmaster Flex) – 1:32 
2   “Let the Good Times Roll”  (feat. Stevie Wonder, Bono, Ray Charles) – 2:55 
3   “Cool Joe, Mean Joe (Killer Joe)”  (feat. Queen Latifah, Tone Loc) – 7:32 
4   “You Put a Move on My Heart”  (feat. Tamia) – 6:13 
5   “Rock with You”  (feat. Brandy, Heavy D) – 4:08 
6   “Moody’s Mood for Love”  (feat. Brian McKnight, Rachelle Ferrell, Take 6, James Moody) – 4:18 
7   “Stomp”  (feat. Luke Cresswell, Everett Bradley, Melle Mel, Coolio, Fiona Wilkes) – 6:16 
8   “Jook Joint” (Reprise)  (feat. Ray Charles, Funkmaster Flex) – 0:56 
9   “Do Nothin’ Till You Hear from Me”  (feat. Phil Collins) – 3:57 
10   “Is It Love That We’re Missing”  (feat. Gloria Estefan, Warren Wiebe) – 4:45 
11   “Heaven’s Girl”  (feat. R. Kelly, Ron Isley, Aaron Hall, Charlie Wilson) – 5:26 
12   “Stuff Like That”  (feat. Charlie Wilson, Ray Charles, Brandy, Chaka Khan, Ashford & Simpson) – 5:45 
13   “Slow Jams”  (feat. Babyface, SWV, Tamia, Barry White) – 7:30 
14   “At the End of the Day (Grace)”  (feat. Toots Thielemans, Barry White) – 7:42 
15   “Jook Joint” (Outro)  (feat. Barry White, Tamia, Toots Thielemans) – 0:49

Companies, etc.

Credits

Notes
Released:  November 7, 1995
Genre:  R&B
Length:  73:01

Label – Qwest, Warner Bros.

Quincy Jones – Mellow Madness (1975)

Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. (born March 14, 1933), also known as “Q“, is an American record producer, conductor, arranger, composer, musician, television producer, film producer, instrumentalist, magazine founder, entertainment company executive, and humanitarian. His career spans six decades in the entertainment industry.

Mellowquincy

Mellow Madness is a 1975 studio album by Quincy Jones. The album also featured an early appearance by The Brothers Johnson. Released not long after Quincy Jones was operated upon for life-threatening brain aneurysms, the music community was glad to have this album around (you can almost sense Q’s own relief as he holds his forehead on the cover).

This represented his return to the music he loved after a retreat from his intense workload of the past decade. And he had much to be excited about. A promising new bass/guitar duo from Billy Preston’s band,then teenagers Louis and George Johnson,were now under Quincy’s employ along with his usual staple of musicians-one of whom was former Rufus lead singer Paulette McWilliams.. Not to mention the presence of Leon Ware from his previous release. The funk era was in full swing and Quincy was again off and running.

“Is It Love That We’re Missin” starts off the album with a thick rhythm guitar based,melodic pop/funk groove featuring the tight vocal harmonies of the Johnson’s. “Paranoid” is a slow,swampy bass synthesizer led funk stomp sung by Leon Ware. “The title song is a rather spare,slinky funky jazz-pop fusion number with Paulette’s vocal harmonies taking center stage. The Afro-Latin percussion led hard funk of “Beautiful Black Girl” is a marvelous,conscious movement with George Johnson rapping proudly of his emotional and physical desires and admiration for black women. The swampy funk continues with “Listen (What It Is) and the wah wah heavy “Just A Little Taste Of Me”-both heavily showcasing George Johnson’s lead vocals.

“My Cherie Amour” takes on a salsa friendly Brazilian funk outlook on the Stevie Wonder classic while “Tryin’ To Find Out About You” is a tight bass/guitar number with a strong emphasis on the spaciousness of the funky drummer Harvey Mason! “Cry Baby” is a sneaky,pumping slow funk groove that really lets guest Melvin Wah Wah Ragin have his workout while “Bluesette” ends the album with the Johnson’s and Toots Theilmans doing a swinging,funk/fusion bossa together. In my opinion? This is Quincy Jones’ finest album of the funk era. When the funk is peculating? It is almost so funky you can’t take it. The sort of groove that gets right down deep into your jugular. His love of Brazilian music comes through strongly here as well-with many sunny and percussive atmospherics on the songs with some actual mellowness. For the most part though? This album is unashamed, stomping, proud and meaningful funk that never takes it’s sight off the new heavy groove

Tracklist

  1. “Is It Love That We’re Missing?” (George Johnson, Debbie Smith)
  2. “Paranoid”
  3. “Mellow Madness” (Tom Bahler, Al Ciner, Quincy Jones, Paulette McWilliams)
  4. “Beautiful Black Girl” (Jones, Otis Smith)
  5. “Listen (What It Is)” (Jones)
  6. “Just a Little Taste of Me”
  7. “My Cherie Amour” (Henry Cosby, Sylvia Moy, Stevie Wonder)
  8. “Tryin’ to Find Out About You”
  9. “Cry Baby”
  10. “Bluesette” (Norman Gimbel, Toots Thielemans)

Companies, etc.

Personnel

Notes

Released:  August 1975
Recorded at:  The Record Plant, Los Angeles, Westlake Audio, Los Angeles
Mastered at:  Kendun Recorders, Burbank, California
Genre:  Funk / Soul
Style:  Jazz-Funk
Length:  42:48

Label – A&M Records