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A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer - you put a great song on top of that, you're really in great shape!

Quincy Jones

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Quincy Jones
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: March 14
Actor
Autobiographer
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Film Producer
Humanitarian
Instrumentalist
Jazz Musician
Jazz Trumpeter
Music Arranger
Chicago
Illinois
Q
Quincy
Quincy Delight Jones Jr.
Quincy Delight Jones Jr
Quincy Jones Jr.
Singer
Really
Singers
Make
Good
Shape
Shapes
Terrible
Sound
Song
Great

More quotes by Quincy Jones

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Michael (Jackson) was so shy, he'd sit down and sing behind the couch with his back to me while I sat with my hands over my eyes-and the lights off.
Quincy Jones
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I go to the favelas in Brazil. It's the same in the South Side of Chicago. It's the same, or just more violent. We're trying to get them to stop selling dope. You see kids with AK-47s, and nine-year-olds with nine millimeters. You know, they don't play. They make us look like nuns.
Quincy Jones
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Im probably the only one in the world you can name thats worked with Billie Holiday, Louie Armstrong, Ella, Duke, Miles, Dizzy, Ray Charles, Aretha, Michael Jackson, rappers. Fly Me to the Moon was played on the moon by Buzz Aldrin. Sinatra. Paul Simon. Tony Bennett. Im the only one.
Quincy Jones
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Young people should travel, and they don’t. You can’t know if you don’t go.
Quincy Jones
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Excellence isn't an act, it's a habit
Quincy Jones
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I learned real early why God gave us two ears and one mouth, because you're supposed to listen twice as much as you talk.
Quincy Jones
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The people who make it to the top - whether they're musicians, or great chefs, or corporate honchos - are addicted to their calling ... [they] are the ones who'd be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren't being paid.
Quincy Jones
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My grandmother had this high-tech security system - a rusty nail she used to lock the door.
Quincy Jones
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You want your parents to say, Hey, I'm proud of you. When you don't hear that, you learn to compensate. You say, Hell, I don't need their approval. If I get my music right, I'll have everyone else's approval. I didn't understand it then, but I now know that's what happened to me.
Quincy Jones
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I improvised my life along the way - I just moved step-by-step. And I knew that if I got better, something would happen.
Quincy Jones
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You have to know that your real home is within.
Quincy Jones
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I went with Lionel Hampton for three years. Out of that came a trip to Europe.
Quincy Jones
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To me it's no accident that all the symphony orchestras around the world tune up to the note A. And A is 440 cycles, except in Germany where it's 444. But the universe is 450 cycles. So what I'm trying to say is, I think it's God's voice, melody especially. Counterpoint, retrograde inversion, harmony... that's the science and the craft.
Quincy Jones
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My brother died of cancer two years ago (1998), renal cell carcinoma. He was my only real brother and I didn't know what to do. I'd never been so desperate in my life.
Quincy Jones
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Greatness occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you have peace of mind.
Quincy Jones
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It's easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play.
Quincy Jones
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I'm a great believer in letting lyrics just flow out, wherever they come from.
Quincy Jones
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I was reading Omar Khayyam, Kahlil Gibran, Rumi, L. Ron Hubbard, all sorts of philosophy. Bebop cats are like that. Curious. I wanted to know about everything.
Quincy Jones
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Eight kids and a stepmother, and I just wanted to be out of there and so when I got a scholarship from Boston to the Schillinger House, which is now the Berklee School of Music, I couldn't wait to get out of there.
Quincy Jones
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My dream is to put together a performance of the evolution of black music with Cirque du Soleil . I would also like to do street opera and children's books. But even as I work toward these things, I want to simplify my life.
Quincy Jones