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# Quincy Jones and Roy Haynes: legends! – 21/11/2024

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Our latest Cosmic Jazz is dedicated to two legends in music who died earlier this month. We paid tribute to drummer Roy Haynes and producer Quincy Jones – but simply describing their most familiar roles in music isn’t enough. For more, read on…

Let’s start with Quincy Jones… He may have been best known for his work with Michael Jackson but Jones, who has died aged 91, was much more than this. He worked with Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie, became a friend and collaborator of Frank Sinatra (see the superb 1966 Sinatra at the Sands record for more) and was a prolific soundtrack composer for both TV and film. He studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and was the arranger for a number of jazz vocalists including Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. His film soundtracks were a feature of many Hollywood films and his TV theme tunes like Ironside were equally celebrated. In the 1980s he crossed over into the worlds of funk and disco, producing records for – along with many others – George Benson and Donna Summer. Made head of A&R at Mercury Records in 1961, he then took just two years to become vice-president – making him the first high-level black executive of any major record label. With a new-found interest in hip hop he recorded his Back on the Block album in 1989 and two years later helped to create the NBC television series The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which launched Will Smith on the road to superstardom. He was probably the only person who could have persuaded the ailing Miles Davis to re-record music from his back catalogue, which did with the album Live at Montreux from 1993.

  1. Quincy Jones – Comin’ Home Baby from Quincy Jones Plays Hip Hits

Comin’ Home Baby was recorded in 1961 by Herbie Mann before lyrics were added  by Bob Dorough and was then popularised in a version by singer Mel Torme. Quincy Jones’ version from the following year takes the stripped back originals, speeds the whole thing up and adds a big band arrangement with some Wes Montgomery-style guitar (courtesy of Jim Hall) and some breathy flute accents for good measure. It’s a early indication of the imaginative approach to arrangements typical of Quincy Jones’ work and the album also includes versions of Desafinado, Cast Your Fate to the Wind, Jive Samba and Take Five.

2. Quincy Jones – Walking in Space from Walking in Space

This 1969 title track is an arranger’s masterclass. The sidemen here include Freddie Hubbard, Hubert Laws, Roland Kirk, Bob James, Grady Tate and more. The walking bass comes from Ray Brown and Valerie Simpson is on vocals – she was later to find fame as one half of soul duo Ashford and Simpson. This version of a tune from the musical Hair (who remembers the hippie anthem Aquarius?) has more than a touch of David Axelrod in the complex arrangement that soars and dips across its full 12 minutes. Also on Walking in Space is an, er, killer version of the late Benny Golson’s Killer Joe and there’s a great take on Edwin Hawkins’ Oh Happy Day to close the album. This one is well worth seeking out as a perfect example of Creed Taylor’s CTI records of the time.

3. Quincy Jones – Summer in the City from You’ve Got It Bad Girl

The opening riff of Summer in the City is perhaps more famous now as the basis for the hypnotic Passin’ Me By from the Pharcyde and Nightmares on Wax’s Nights Introlude, but it’s here in the original version from Quincy Jones’ 1973 album You’ve Got It Bad Girl. The album moved Jones much closer to the R&B-focused Body Heat and The Dude albums which followed. Summer in the City is a dramatic recasting of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s pop tune with Eddie Louis (or, more accurately, Eddy Louiss) on organ and (again) Valerie Simpson on vocals. The album also includes a big band take on Dizzy Gillespie’s Manteca land an overblown version of Stevie Wonder’s Superstition. The line up across the record is impressive though – Dave Grusin, Hubert Laws, Phil Woods and George Duke are all featured.

4. Quincy Jones – Jazz Corner of the Word/Birdland from Back on the Block

We shouldn’t forget that Quincy Jones put together the charity record We Are The World, so this extravagantly star-studded album which includes brief ‘e-appearances’ from Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, Ella Fitzgerald and George Benson and genuine contributions from Herbie Hancock, George Duke, Chaka Khan and the Brothers Johnson has some familiar limitations. Overall, it’s too diffuse but the track sequencing works and there are some memorable tunes too, including I’ll Be Good to You, Setembro (Brazilian Wedding Song) and the concluding The Secret Garden. Birdland has Joe Zawinul on keyboards – naturally…

5. Miles Davis and Quincy Jones – Gone, Gone, Gone from Miles and Quincy Live at Montreux

Now this one is better than anyone could have expected. Miles Davis died just four months after this 1991 live recording from Montreux. The record featured both the Gil Evans Orchestra and the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band – an idea conceived and conducted by Quincy Jones. The focus is on Evans’ stunning arrangements for those seminal albums Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain and although they can’t match the originals, the results are well worth a listen. Although gravely ill, Davis is (mostly) on fine form and there’s excellent backup from Wallace Roney and Kenny Garrett.

Roy Haynes, who has died aged 99, was one of the most significant musicians in jazz. A roll call of a few associates gives some idea of his status – Lester Young, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Stan Getz, Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Dave Holland and Marcus Strickland. Let’s start at the beginning – the (colorised) photo shows him behind the drums at the Open Door club in NYC in 1953. Charlie Parker is on alto sax, Charles Mingus is on bass and Thelonious Monk is on piano – alongside the classic One Day in Harlem photo and iconic photos of jazz legends like Dexter Gordon and Miles Davis, this has to be one of the most important images in jazz.

Haynes replaced Max Roach in Parker’s later quintet before Coltrane used him whenever Elvin Jones wasn’t available – you can hear him on After the Rain (see below). In the 1960s and 70s Haynes worked with Gary Burton and Stan Getz ,but it was his association with Chick Corea that was to prove one of the most durable. Beginning with the landmark Now He Sings, Now He Sobs trio album (1968) with Corea on piano and Miroslav Vitous on bass, Haynes was to feature in a series of excellent trio records for ECM with Dave Holland taking the bass chair. He went on to record with guitarist Pat Metheny on before leading his own appropriately named Fountain of Youth band well into the new century. Before this, Haynes led the Hip Ensemble – another band title that befitted his accolade as one of Esquire magazine’s best-dressed men in America. We need to reflect on this incredible legacy: from pre-swing bands to post-bop, into fusion and out into the world of 21st century jazz – Haynes was an in-demand player throughout all of these stylistic changes.

6. John Coltrane Quartet – After the Rain from Impressions

We opened this tribute to Roy Haynes with a classic from Coltrane’s first album on Impulse! Records, issued in 1963.  The record is something of a mixture, with both live and studio tracks recorded from 1961 through to 1963. Two are from the celebrated Live at the Village Vanguard record and two come from Van Gelder studio recordings. When regular drummer Elvin Jones was unavailable, it was Roy Haynes who was Coltrane’s preferred choice and so he appears here on perhaps what is the standout tune, After the Rain. Haynes is also on My Favourite Things: Coltrane at Newport (1963) where you can hear him on the 23 minute take on Impressions. After the Rain has become something of a standard for Coltrane acolytes – Pharoah Sanders recorded it on his Journey to the One album (1980), and so did McCoy Tyner on his solo piano album Soliloquy (1992).

7. Pharoah Sanders – Astral Travelling from Thembi

Unusually for Pharoah Sanders’ Impulse! albums, Thembi (1971) has shorter tunes recorded with two different ensembles. Sanders is on tenor and soprano saxes, plus an assortment of flutes, a bailophone, a cow horn and small percussion. Lonnie Liston Smith is the dominant voice on his own composition, Astral Travelling, but there are also delights from Michael White’s violin on the title track and an intense, five-minute bass solo by by Cecil McBee on Love. Interestingly, Astral Travelling was Liston Smith’s first outing on Fender Rhodes: he recounts that I saw this instrument sitting in the corner and I asked the engineer, ‘What is that?’ He said, ‘That’s a Fender Rhodes electric piano.’ I didn’t have anything to do, so I started messing with it, checking some of the buttons to see what I could do with different sounds. All of a sudden I started writing a song and everybody ran over and said, ‘What is that?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know, I’m just messing around.’ Pharoah said, ‘Man, we gotta record that. Whatcha gonna call it?’ I’d been studying astral projections and it sounded like we were floating through space so I said let’s call it ‘Astral Traveling.’ That’s how I got introduced to the electric piano.

8. Roy Haynes – Quiet Fire from Thank You, Thank You

This 1977 Galaxy Records album was re-released on CD along with the same year’s Vistalite – and it’s well worth looking out for this ‘twofer’. There are currently seven copies on Discogs, for example. The line-up is exceptional – Haynes is joined by George Cables on piano. Cecil McBee on bass and Kenneth Nash on percussion.  Elsewhere on the record John Klemmer, Bobby Hutcherson and Stanley Cowell are featured. Quiet Fire has something of a cult status – Gilles Peterson and Jez Nelson have both promoted it on their radio shows and DJ Kev Beadle included it in the third volume of his excellent Private Collection compilation series. All tracks on each of the Private Collection volumes are recommended as examples of great jazz and beyond tunes that were often featured at legendary London club sessions such as Dingwalls.

9. Chick Corea – Now He Sings, Now He Sobs from Now He Sings, Now He Sobs

This was one of the first records out of the gate in the Blue Note Tone Poets reissue series and it’s an essential album for any jazz collector. If you can find one, get the beautiful gatefold Tone Poet version – it’s a visual and sonic feast you will keep coming back to. The record originally appeared on the Solid State label in 1968 and, remarkably, it was only Corea’s second album. There are five original tunes with the titles emerging from lines in the I Ching. This trio recording has Corea on piano, Haynes on drums and Miroslav Vitous on bass – a group that was later to record a series of superb albums for the ECM label. It’s a wholly successful grouping: you can hear that it’s Chick Corea, but there’s a freedom of expression here that’s picked up by Haynes and Vitous, with the result that this is a near-perfect piano trio album.

10. Roy Haynes – Question and Answer from Fountain of Youth

Haynes chose a perfect title for this album – recorded when he was 79 years old, the music is that of a much younger man. Recorded live in 2002 at Birdland in NY, Haynes leads a quartet that also features pianist Martin Bejarano, saxophonist Marcus Strickland and bassist John Sullivan. Question and Answer is a Pat Metheny tune, first recorded in 1990 on a trio album with Metheny and Dave Holland, but this is a wonderfully spirited version. The rest of this excellent record has no fewer than three Thelonious Monk tunes and a great jazz waltz take on Greensleeves, clearly inspired by Coltrane’s version.

There will be more from Cosmic Jazz soon. In the meantime, check out Neil’s bumper crop of recent musical choices and Derek’s top five recent records via Youtube:

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