Quincy Jones: Remembering a Thriller

I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to write a tribute to the late Quincy Jones, music man extraordinaire. Now I think the time has come. On Sunday, daughter Rashida Jones accepted the honorary Oscar that was supposed to be handed to her dad at this year’s Governors Awards ceremony. She was even able to deliver the speech he’d penned for the occasion: the man was prepared! Always an optimist, Jones celebrated music and film as having the power to make “the world a more understanding and embracing place for us all to exist.”  (Other honorees included writer/director Richard Curtis—who was warmly roasted by Hugh Grant—as well as veteran casting director Juliet Taylor, and the longtime producers of the James Bond films, Barbara Broccoli and Michael J. Wilson.)   

 It’s hard to write about Quincy Jones because, in his 91 years of life, he found success as a record producer, composer, arranger, conductor, trumpeter, and bandleader. He also functioned from time to time as a movie producer (the 1985 Spielberg screen adaptation of The Color Purple was one of his projects) and occasional actor. As an arranger and conductor, he worked closely with greats like Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. Hit tunes with which he was involved ranged all the way from Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party” to the wacky Austin Powers theme music (originally called “Soul Bossa Nova”) to Michael Jackson’s bestselling Thriller album, on which he worked as a record producer.

 The artistic period I know best is the 1960s, and I’d like to remember Jones in terms of that pivotal decade.  He attracted attention for his very first score, written for Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker (1964), in which Rod Steiger played a Holocaust survivor haunted by his memories. He went on to score films that were both serious (The Slender Thread) and comic (Walk, Don’t Run). But his first of many banner years was 1967, when he was involved with scores for five films, including Carl Reiner’s Enter Laughing, the thriller Banning, the very dark In Cold Blood, and the year’s top award-winner, In the Heat of the Night. The last of these featured a bluesy Jones-composed title song performed by his longtime idol, Ray Charles. Though In the Heat of the Night was nominated for seven Oscars and won five of them (including Best Picture), Jones’ contribution to that film was overlooked by the Academy. Still, in that same year he was honored with two of his seven competitive Oscar nominations, one for the jazzy score of In Cold Blood and one for “The Eyes of Love,” an original song featured in Banning. “The Eyes of Love” made hm the first-ever African American to be nominated by the Oscar voters for Best Original Song. His two Oscar nominations in a single year was also record-breaking for an African American composer.

 Ironically, Jones never won a competitive Oscar. He gained another Best Original Song nomination for a Sidney Poitier romantic comedy, For Love of Ivy, and a decade later his film score for The Wiz was also recognized. The Color Purple earned him three nominations, including Best Score, Best Song (with Lionel Ritchie also involved), and Best Picture (he was nominated along with fellow producers Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank Marshall). And the posthumous statuette he just won was not his first honorary Oscar. Back in 1995 he was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, the first musician ever to be so honored by the Academy. (He eloquently called his time on stage to receive that golden trophy “the proudest moment of my life.”)

 

Imitating the Inimitable: the Loss of Loud, Proud Tina Turner

So another icon has left the building. Yesterday’s newspapers brought word that the great Tina Turner had passed away at age 83.  I never saw her perform in person, but her recordings and over-the-air performances were plenty to convince me that as a singer, dancer, and all-around bad ass she was one of a kind. To me, and to many others, she will always be “Proud Mary” for real.

 Which, of course, is why Hollywood snapped up the opportunity to portray her onscreen. In the 1993 biopic, What’s Love Got to Do With It?, Tina was played by Angela Bassett, while Laurence Fishburne took on the role of Tina’s talented but sometimes ruthless husband, Ike. (Both were nominated for Oscars.)  Though she criticized the film’s many inaccuracies, Tina herself praised Bassett’s performance, later writing in a 2003 Time  magazine tribute to Bassett, “Angela, the first time we met, you didn't look, sound, or move like me—that came later after you worked so hard to make it happen. But even then, I could see that the young woman standing before me had strength, determination, and big, big dreams, just like me.”

 It's rare when the lead actor in a biopic gets that kind of praise from a living subject. Which doesn’t mean, of course, that what Bassett contributed on screen should be confused with the real thing.  We move even further from reality with Tina, the jukebox musical first seen on stage in London (2018) and then  on Broadway a year later. The show, which I’ve enjoyed, neatly shapes Tina’s chronology as a way to work in most of her top songs, using them to explain the various phases of her life.

 So-called jukebox musicals have been all the rage on Broadway for some years now, giving theatregoers a chance to pretend they’ve seen some of the world’s great talents in person. Not all jukebox musicals set out to tell the performer’s own story: for instance, Girl From the North Country re-arranges 19 pre-existing songs by Bob Dylan to tell a Depression-era story about the inhabitants of a shabby Duluth rooming house. But the classic jukebox musical uses a singer’s own catalogue of hits as a way to narrate the story of his or her showbiz career. I’m thinking of the current MJ: The Musical (about, natch, the life and times of Michael Jackson) and A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Music (which includes in its cast actors playing Diamond Then and Diamond Now). Beautiful, the musical about songwriter Carole King’s eventful life, was well-received when it opened in 2014 for a five-year run. There was somewhat less love for The Cher Show (something of a hodgepodge, with three different actresses playing Cher as Star, Babe, and Lady). It only stuck around for 295 performances.

 Aside from shows that focus on a single performer, there are several that explore the dynamics of an evolving musical group.  Long-ago revues like Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Smokey Joe’s Café paid tribute to songwriters like Fats Waller and the Leiber/Stoller duo, but didn’t really focus on anyone’s biographical story. More recently, the long-running Jersey Boys intertwined the lives of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons with their musical hits, explaining how four feckless young guys from the Garden State grew and changed as they found themselves becoming cultural icons. In a similar spirit, Ain’t Too Proud has drilled in on Motown’s The Temptations.

 Is it nostalgia that endears these shows to the public? I think we all want to feel that we were truly in the room where it happened,    

 

Easing On Down the Road with The Wiz

In early 1975, while blaxploitation flicks like Shaft and Superfly were still scoring on multiplex screens, Broadway welcomed a musical version of the classic Wizard of Oz that introduced black vernacular, pop music, and an entirely black cast. The show, which was called The Wiz, played to packed houses until 1979. At the annual Tony Awards festivities, it collected seven statuettes, including Best Musical Score and Best Musical. For the late Geoffrey Holder, husband of my first dance teacher, Carmen de Lavallade, it was definitely a career highpoint. The multitalented Holder won a Tony for directing the show, and a second for designing its flamboyant costumes. When his name was called, he literally danced up to the stage in a wonderful display of showmanship.

A hit of this magnitude of course captured the imagination of Hollywood. Transferring a fantasy from stage to screen is always a challenge, but the filmmakers behind The Wiz made some choices that definitely added to their difficulties. The Dorothy on stage in The Wiz, like that in the classic Judy Garland film adapted from the L. Frank Baum novel in 1939, is played as an innocent young girl. But the Hollywood team doubtless felt it needed a star performer, which is why it gave the role to Diana Ross, age thirty-four. A very game Ross could indeed look super-skinny and helpless, but she couldn’t convince as an adolescent. That’s why her part was transformed into that of a rather agoraphobic spinster kindergarten teacher who works hard on behalf of her extensive Harlem family but is cut off by her own fears from enjoying the world outside her door. The team behind Ross and company today seems unlikely. The screenwriter was Joel Schumacher, not yet a director of tough dramas. The director was the great Sidney Lumet, best known for films (like The Pawnbroker, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon) that captured a sense of urban squalor.

Perhaps because of Lumet’s experience on the streets of New York City, this cinematic version of The Wiz dropped the traditional Kansas setting of the opening scene in favor of a gritty urban Harlem streetscape. Characters descend into a spooky but fantastically appointed subway, and the Cowardly Lion (Ted Ross, who’d also won a Tony for this role) starts off as one of the lions in front of the New York Public Library. Other characters are played by Hollywood royalty, including Richard Pryor as the Wizard himself, Lena Horne (Lumet’s mother-in-law)  who gets to sing a corny ballad as Good Witch Glinda, and none other than Michael Jackson, playing his first movie role as the Scarecrow. Watching this film for the first time recently, I admired the lively sets and costumes (the film earned four Oscar nominations in technical categories), but disliked the way the lugubrious story advanced at a crawl, milking every opportunity to be sentimental.

But the recent trend for “live” musicals on TV gave me a chance to relive the spunk and spirit of the stage show. The 2015 broadcast was chockful of stars (Common, David Alan Grier, Mary J. Blige as an appropriate hateful Wicked Witch of the West, aka Evillene), but an actual teenager, Shanice Williams, was the glue that held it all together. Perhaps some of the excitement came from the adrenaline rush as cast and crew all joined hands to work at achieving theatrical perfection. I also sensed freshened dialogue, a sharpened storyline, and less easy sentimentality. Sorry, Diana Ross – you’re a singer like no other, but I’d rather not ease on down the road again with you anytime soon.

Michael Jackson, In Memoriam

I must be getting old. As I browse my daily newspaper, my eye is often caught by the obituary section. There I’m partial to those large memorial boxes featuring a photo of the deceased as well as a long description of his or her earthly accomplishments, lovingly written by survivors. On June 25, I was stopped in my tracks by something unexpected. There was no photo, just the reproduction of a scrawled signature. Above it were the words “In Memoriam.” And below the signature I saw a name and some dates: Michael Joseph Jackson, August 29,1958 – June 25, 2009.

Yes, it’s been five years since Michael Jackson left the building. Conrad Murray, the cardiologist who administered to Jackson—as a sleep aid—the powerful anesthetic that shortened his life, is now out of jail, having served two years of a four-sentence. (Fortunately for the rest of us, his medical license has been revoked, and I’ve read he plans to embark on a singing career.) But as I understand it, Jackson’s tangled financial holdings are still being sorted out. A good friend of mine, an attorney for one of Jackson’s own attorneys (don’t ask!) has said this is the most complicated, most fascinating case he’s ever encountered.

I have no idea who put together the memorial tribute. But it’s highly emotional, and seems the work of a friend or family member, not a business associate. Here are some excerpts:

“The Creator blessed him with never-before-seen musical talent.”

“He had a lifelong dedication to his profession which never allowed him to form a traditional family of his own.”

“He lived to see unprecedented success and basked in the admiration of millions. By the same audience, he was unjustly persecuted under unfounded cruel allegations which broke his spirit.”

“Human neglect and carelessness forced his body into an early rest and his soul entered eternity on June 25, 2009 at the age of 50. He is mourned by his extended family and millions of people around the world.”

There’s much more, including a listing of Jackson’s unheralded talents (he was apparently both an inventor and a gifted sketch artist) as well as his many charitable activities. But for all the affectionate chronicling of Jackson’s “irresistible” smile and  “infectious” laughter, I see a huge reservoir of anger. This tribute reads like the life of a saint, one whose goodness couldn’t withstand the cruel machinations of others.

I don’t pretend to know the real truth about Michael Jackson. I don’t understand his mysterious lifestyle, his baffling choices. I do know that he was immensely talented. Like many, I suspect that his personal life was somehow stunted by the show business career toward which he was pointed almost from birth.

I also know that he made a difference to many he never met. A small example: I was on a family vacation at a Mexican resort, the kind where members of the staff put on the evening’s entertainment. One highlight was a Michael Jackson tribute show, highlighting his most popular numbers. The star, lip-syncing to Jackson’s falsetto and pulling off his idiosyncratic dance moves, was a slender young Mexican who during daylight hours worked as a bartender. When, over a frosty piña colada, I asked how he’d developed his uncanny impersonation, I learned he’d been a fan since age eight. Through years of practice before his bedroom mirror, he’d turned himself into a Michael Jackson clone.

I wish him a happier life than Michael Jackson had. Perhaps (aside from those Club Med talent shows) he’ll steer clear of showbiz, which can give generously, but also taketh away.