“Sure I’ll talk with her, I owe everything to Joe.” - Quincy Jones
I sat with Quincy Jones on his couch in his Bel Air home for 3.5 hours in June 2018. Now, almost seven years later practically every cell in my body has regenerated, though our conversation remains vivid.
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“So Joe’s your Grandpa, eh?” Quincy [Q] said, giving me a hug. He wore a long purple shirt, and sipped a bubbly can with a neon straw.
“Great Grandpa, actually!”
“You ever meet him?”
“No, just imaginary conversations with him in the bath when I was young.”
When I learned that Quincy died, sense memories from my time with him flooded my body. That morning at 5 am I remembered that at some point in our conversation he was talking about DNA and his team of doctors in Sweden, who are also jazz musicians. My notes from that part of the conversation read, “Doctors say that DNA is programmed to disintegrate.” He added something like, “[DNA] dissolves to make way for the youth. To make way for the next generation.”
I landed in Quincy’s house having this conversation due to my connection with my Great Grandfather Joseph Gershenson. Gershenson helped open doors for Quincy at Universal and mentored him in his early film-scoring days. As a choreographer, my research has followed Joseph [Joe] Gerhsenson’s life and work - including his role in Quincy’s career. I have been on a quest to better understand the creative business and artistic processes and formulas of film scoring in the 1950s-60s. Even as a nine year old elite gymnast I immersed myself in my Great Grandpa’s film music from Pillow Talk and Sweet Charity. For my training, competitions, and floor routine I chose the soundtrack from Thoroughly Modern Millie.
I was about to turn 26 when I sat next to Q on the couch and he opened his first jello of our visit. My attention bounced off a Grammy on a shelf, a Golden Globe on the side table, to huge white orchids and a poster from The Color Purple. I reached for a piece of jicama on a large low glass coffee table, looking up at the expansive view of oak tree canopy, and houses perched on the edges of hillside. Q’s list of nearby homeowners’ names dropped like a red carpet off the balcony and down into the canyon. I imagined the residue of great musicians' fingers on the keys of the piano in the foreground, framed by a smoggy long LA summer sunset. I reached for some hummus, grapes on the same platter, the couch felt luxurious, as did the cream colored carpet. The ceiling was made of straw like a thatched hut. I asked about the ceiling. And who is that in that picture?
During the first 10 minutes our conversation traveled from astrology, to numerology, to romantic relationships, to how LSD can open the soul. He described how he sees color when he hears sound and views different instruments in an orchestra as spices in the pantry. He described tasting sounds.
In the month leading up to the meeting I had fanatically annotated Quincy’s autobiography and inhaled as many interviews as I could find. There was so much more to this legend that I had not yet learned. I revisited my Great Grandfather Joe Gershenson’s Oral history, where I had first noted the overlap between Quincy Jones’ and my Great Grandfather’s lives. American Film Institute hired Irene Atkins Khan to compile conversations she had with Gershenson in 1976 at his home in North Hollywood. This oral history covers Joe’s early childhood, his career conducting music for Vaudeville and early talkies, RKO Theaters, and three decades at Universal, first as Executive Director and then Music Supervisor (1940s-1969). I also reread Joe’s unpublished manuscript, Music for Films: A Guide to the Techniques and Procedures Involved in the Writing and Development of a Motion Picture Score. The book describes at length the process and techniques of analogue film scoring.
From Music For Films Table of Contents:
Courtesy of Gershenson/Gevritz Family Archive
Going into this meeting I wanted to understand how Quincy had entered Joe’s world-and vice versa. Joe, born in Kishinev in 1905, was 3 years old during the first Kishinev Pogrom. A circuitous journey led him to flee and finally work as a musician in Harlem and conducting Vaudeville orchestras in the 1920s. He produced 78 musical shorts with early talkie technology through Mentone Productions 1933-39. He then conducted the RKO Orchestras, was subsequently offered a job at Universal and moved to LA. As Music Supervisor at Universal, Joe’s best friend and collaborator, Henry [Hank] Mancini put Quincy on Joe’s radar. As Joe says in the oral history, “I saw a picture called The Pawnbroker (1964), which he [Quincy] had done in New York, and I liked it. And that was the whole basis of my picking Quincy for Mirage (1965).” In the oral history he elaborates,
ATKINS: Did he start the trend to jazz scores?
GERSHENSON: No, I think Hank did that. They’re great pals, incidentally. [...] Before Quincy started working in pictures he was an arranger for one of the bands. He did the big band’s charts – not Duke Ellington, but one of the big bands. He played a little piano, but he wasn’t the pianist in the band. He was the arranger. Quincy did four pictures for me.
ATKINS: He has such a distinctive style. Does he do his own orchestrating?
GERSHENSON: His sketches indicate what he wants. I conducted for him.
ATKINS: Does he ever conduct?
GERSHENSON: He may now. I’m not sure.
Quincy’s infamous We Are The World was recorded 9 years after this interview took place.
On that couch Quincy also told me that before the making of Pawnbroker he studied strings with Nadia Boulanger in France, put together an all star jazz big band and toured Europe with them. Quincy Jones’ orchestra headlined huge venues, eventually ran out of money and had to figure out how to pay for 18 American musicians to return to the US. He called a friend who loaned him money, and got back to New York in debt. He then scored music for television and worked on music for B films. He soon realized if he was going to make it to Hollywood he needed to work on an A film. And that is when his and Joe’s paths crossed with Pawnbroker.
Gershenson liked to take risks on new talent but not everybody around him did. Joe also gave first time film scoring jobs to “Cy Coleman, Percy Faith, Ernest Gold, Jerry Goldsmith, Bernie Herrmann, Quincy Jones, Bert Kaempfert.” (Gershenson, Oral History, 72) In his oral history he describes difficulties he had with producers not wanting to hire new artists, including Quincy:
We all met in my office. And he [Orson Welles] walked in with this big cigar, and he sat in a chair (POINTS TO HIS STOMACH)… He said, “Who’s going to do the music?” I said, pointing to Mancini, “This man.” (GRUFFLY IMITATING) “What’s his name? “Henry Mancini.” “Who the hell is Henry Mancini?” So I said, “Who the hell are you, you fat so-and-so?” And I said, “That’s it. Let’s go boys.” And I walked out. I had the same problem with Quincy Jones. The producer was also Gregory Peck, and he was a partner in the thing, in the picture. He wanted someone else, and I insisted on bringing Quincy from New York. Of course I finally won out, and that was Quincy’s first picture (Mirage).
From Left to Right: Quincy Jones, Joseph Gershenson, Ross Hunter look over score sheets from Mirage
Courtesy of Gershenson/Gevirtz Family Archive
When I showed Quincy this photo during our conversation, he pointed to the man in the tie and said, “I remember him, he’s the guy who didn’t want to hire me.” Then he explained that when he was interviewed by Joe and his staff, “one person came out to meet me and said Uhh, hold on a minute…” and went back into the office, leaving him to wait. My Grandmother, Joe’s daughter, confirmed this, saying, “Dad fought to hire Quincy when no one else would hire Black musicians.”
I was prepared to spend 10 minutes talking to a distracted and aloof Quincy Jones. Instead, I showed up, was escorted to the porch and was calmed by his presence. It took 2 hours of conversation to get to talking with Quincy about Joe. During that span I took 6 pages of notes. Combining notes and memory, this part of the conversation went:
WICKS: What was Joe like?
JONES: Professional. Kind. Saw the human in people.
WICKS: Did you ever hear him speak Yiddish?
JONES: Chutzpah, schmuck. Not much more.
WICKS: Was Joe more artist or more business man?
JONES: He was an Executive. He held many threads together and oversaw many things.
Quincy mused about percussion being the oil in an orchestra and rhythm its locomotion. He talked about the image of seeing his mother taken away in a straight jacket when he was young gave him an intuition that fed his music. He suggested I watch the film Meet Danny Wilson, with Frank Sinatra, and told about the deep friendship he and Sinatra shared. When I looked up the film I learned that Gershenson directed the music. He was aware of Joe’s extensive work with RKO Theaters. When Quincy was 12 he watched musicians play in jazz clubs, too young to be admitted, he hid behind cracks in the walls. He became obsessed with music and loved transistor radios that brought it to him even when he was not at a venue. I asked him about his experience of relationships between Jewish and Black musicians in Hollywood. He said that he thought they were close. I asked if he experienced racism in Hollywood and he responded, “There was some.” He reported that he keeps his brain sharp by completing 300 sudoku puzzles. (All while he ate 4 jellos!)
He told me about artists of my generation he mentored like Jacob Collier and Nikki Yanofsky. He asked me what my summer plans were and I told him that I was going to Montreal to train swinging trapeze. He introduced and connected me with Montreal-based Nikki Yanofsky.
What remains crystal clear in my mind is our time talking about Nadia Boulanger, an influential composition teacher with whom Quincy studied in France. Under her apprenticeship he finally could access and practice stringed instruments. He said that this kind of study wasn’t accessible to a Black man in America in 1957. He quoted Boulanger, “Your art is nothing more or less than you are as a human being.” Hearing about Boulanger and his experience with her made me want to continue researching her work.
I remember him telling me this in an extended ode to Boulanger during our conversation. Light glimmered in his eyes and his tone got excited when he described leaving her home where the lessons took place. He saw strings dancing alongside him down the stairwell, bouncing out onto the street and twirling along the sidewalk. He said Boulanger talked about the 12 musical notes as 12 ingredients. I’ve recently rewatched interviews where Q says, “Nadia would say that until we get to 13 … we have to figure out what to do to make it ours.” Quincy’s recent book is titled 12 Notes on Life and Creativity.
I am currently making an aerial dance inspired by Boulanger’s impact on her students and the lineage of those who have shaped music history. It’s called Radio Vision. The score is by Simon Linsteadt. Quincy’s words hover around the creation of this piece.
Helen Wicks performs Radio Vision, July 2024 • Photo by Robbie Sweeny
As darkness came, still seated on the couch, the tangential conversation continued. (I took a few extra selfies in the bathroom.) We kept circling back to strategies about how to keep negativity out so that creativity can flow. He asked me, “Do you use daily affirmations?” Then he started sharing some of his.
I don’t remember any of his affirmations because I was so overwhelmed by watching him pray in front of me.
We ended in silence inscribing notes in books we gave to each other. He inscribed his to “Baby Lady, Sista from anotha mister …” and “...wishing you love to share, and most importantly friends who care… I do care ‘bout choo girl…”
Quincy Jones & Helen Wicks • June 2018, Bel Aire, CA
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I woke up early on November 4, 2024 to hear of Quincy’s death. Sitting there in the pre-dawn light I held the density of his passing and felt the weight of lineage. The projects that didn’t happen, and the what-could-have-beens in tension with the abundance of accomplishments and lives touched thanks to the people like Quincy and Joe who fight for each other. An affirmation: May we and future generations continue their commitment to connecting with young artists, opening doors for them, and indulging in snacks and conversation on the couch.
