Quincy

This loving retrospective, directed and produced by one of his daughters, gives the viewer an understanding of the depth and breadth of the career of Quincy Jones. We follow him over the course of a few important months of his life as he has yet another medical emergency, gives up drinking, begins exercising, and produces an event that is the perfect ending to his long and successful life: the opening of the National African American Museum in Washington D.C. with President Barak Obama.

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Just scratching the surface of the many projects Quincy was involved with, one begins to grasp just how influential and instrumental Quincy was to American music. Over his 70+ year career, by the sheer force of his knowledge, charisma, and musicianship, he was able to stay relevant as music shifted and changed.

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He went from be-bop to hip hop and circled back around to jazz towards the end of his life. Along the way he wrote the music for many culturally-important TV shows and films, including The Italian Job, the Color Purple, the Wiz, and Roots.

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He was behind the success of Michael Jackson, he lifted Frank Sinatra into stratospheric success, and kick-started the careers of Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey by personally choosing them to play parts in the Color Purple. Quincy was the person who gave Will Smith his first acting credit with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and, seeing a gap in the market, started Vibe magazine.

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He was the force behind that terrible song “We are the World” that raised millions of dollars for hunger relief in Africa in the 80s. And he was involved in the “Save the Children” project that sought to do the same for children in America way back in the 70s.

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While this documentary gave us these facts (and so many more), what it gives us that is more interesting is a peek into his personal life. We see that Quincy's drive for success and renown cost him his relationships with his five baby-mamas and how that deeply hurt him. His conflicting desires to have both the steady home life that he craved and intimacy with the many beautiful women he had access to didn’t work out. He tried to have both and that choice carried consequences.

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Producer and director Rashida Jones does an excellent job of lauding her father, reminding us of his work with most of the greatest American artists of our time, while also showing us Quincy’s backstory. We learn of his difficult childhood and traumatic memories that still haunted him even into his 80s. We are shown, with excellent archival images, video, and audio clips how ugly America’s racism is, how much his collaborators respect and love him, and how important his children are to him. He had 7 children with 5 women, and the fact that all of the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are in his life says a lot about what kind of father he was.

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I went into this documentary respecting the work of Quincy Jones (heck, it made such an impression me that I remember where I was when I first heard "Live at the Sands"), but not really liking the man. I’d read some things Quincy had said that gave the impression of a man deeply steeped in misogyny, but this documentary left me with a more balanced view of him. It shows the tender under-belly of his life; the pain of having a mentally-unstable mother, the traumatic childhood years spent in fear, his humility, fragility, and gratitude.

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I smiled a lot of the way through this and even teared up a few times. We can see that it was difficult for Q to let go of a such a successful life; the sadness he felt about having to die is palpable in this. But he lived 100% open to life's pleasures, doing whatever he wanted the great majority of the time. He touched the lives of billions of people and, in the end, reveled in the love of his enormous family. Big ups to Quincy Jones.

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