Q

"It’s about Quincy Jones’s journey. He started out poor, born on the South Side of Chicago to a mentally ill mother. He went on to become one of the most influential producers in the industry. Music sort of saved him. He started to tour as a back-up musician in his teens with these amazing jazz bands. He ended up scoring all these movies, and then he got into producing. Quincy Jones produced the main Michael Jackson records. He started so young and he accomplished so much. Aside from the fact that his life is so interesting, I read this book as I was steering the ship on my own album. It showed me the skill of a great producer. It’s not necessarily that you’re playing things yourself – it’s the ability to bring together the best people and direct them to create your vision. That information was invaluable to me, as I’ve been developing my skills as a producer. I don’t consider myself a player of any instruments either. I can write on many instruments but don’t excel at any instrument and yet I’m very involved in every step of the creation of my music and I’m so particular about every sound. For me reading Q validated that skill set. It’s like a long lesson on how to make great records. Nowadays everyone uses the same crew that churned out the last pop hit rather than bringing the best of different genres together and creating something amazing and new, which was what Quincy Jones did. One of the reasons my music sounds different is I bring together people who do different things to create something new. Being an artist is such a rollercoaster – hearing about other people’s hardships and triumphs helps me keep going. I love doing collaborations because it’s an opportunity for me to step out of the restriction of whatever it is that I do with my music and just try something completely different. It’s fun and I’ve forged fantastic relationships through working on other people’s songs. So I really enjoy it."

"It’s about Quincy Jones’s journey. He started out poor, born on the South Side of Chicago to a mentally ill mother. He went on to become one of the most influential producers in the industry. Music sort of saved him. He started to tour as a back-up musician in his teens with these amazing jazz bands. He ended up scoring all these movies, and then he got into producing. Quincy Jones produced the main Michael Jackson records. He started so young and he accomplished so much."

"Quincy Jones is also a dear friend of mine, and has been for 50 years, yet I really enjoyed reading about his life and career in his 2002 autobiography. It was Quincy, back in the ’90s, who told me, ‘Herbie, you better start writing your book.’ I hadn’t thought of it, but over the years, I started to think he was right. He made suggestions on how to do it, and he would remind me periodically, ‘Start writing that book!'"