Nat King Cole Sings and George Shearing Plays

© -Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Some of the best news I've received in a long time came to me when I heard that one of my favorites albums of all times was to be re-released...the album I made with Nat Cole.

Words could never express the joy I felt during the entire time that this album was being made. There was, first of all, the meeting of the two musical minds. Then, there were the countless surprises that Nat threw at me. Let me give you an example. When Nat suggested that we do "Pick Yourself Up," my interest wasn't that high. I had recorded this in 1949 at a tempo which no longer excited me. Now, here came Nat with a very fresh approach...a tempo which would swing into the middle of the next year and a relaxed feeling that allowed time for the rather clever lyric to be thoroughly digested.

Ralph Carmichael, my partner in crime in the arranging department, always seemed to anticipate my musical thoughts and provided many of his own...thus making this collaboration most joyous.

I've worn out my copy of this album and the copies of many of my friends. Now, here it is on CD. This is why I say, ‘Some of the best news I've received in a long time came to me....’ Enjoy it as much as I do.

- George Shearing

Aside from the fact that as pianists, both were enormous influences on the stylistic development of many of the great post World War II Jazz piano players, I always thought that George Shearing and Nat King Cole were responsible for some of the most beautiful Jazz ever created on the planet.

I was reminded of this fact recently when I heard on the car radio their version of the Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields evergreen - Pick Yourself Up.

I [safely] hurried home from the errands that I was engaged in to locate the CD containing their rendition of this song and, as a result, was pleasantly reacquainted with one of my all-time favorite albums – Nat “King” Cole Sings The George Shearing Quintet Plays [Capitol CDP 7 48332 2].

As an added bonus, when the recording was re-mastered and issued as a compact disc, Pete Welding was asked to provide the following informative and insightful insert notes which the editorial staff of JazzProfiles thought you might enjoy reviewing.

You’ll find a video tribute to Nat and George at the conclusion of this piece as set to Pick Yourself Up.

“At the time of their births the chances of the two principals' in this lively and appealing album ever meeting, let alone combining forces in such an entrancing set of performances, would have been considered so remote as to be statistically insignificant. And on the face of it, what happened here probably should not have happened at all, for the two men could not have had more widely different backgrounds. The singer, Nat "King" Cole, black, son of a Baptist minister, had been born March 17, 1917, in Birmingham, Ala., but was raised in Chicago where his family moved when he was still a youngster. The pianist, George Shearing, white, blind from birth, had been born on August 13, 1919, in London, England, where he was reared, studied music at The Linden Lodge School for the Blind, and spent the first three decades of his life. So, not only were the two distanced -and widely- by geography, but by profound cultural differences as well.

The likelihood of their paths ever crossing was slim indeed, but cross they did, and often enough so that, in time, it came to seem inevitable that one of those meetings would be memorialized on record. You hold the results in your hand. And while it would be fatuous to suggest they were somehow fated to make this album together, the incontrovertible fact is that with each passing year-as the two came of age, began pursuing careers in music, gained increasingly in experience, proficiency, mastery and, finally, great popularity-that eventuality came ever closer of being realized. The actuality took place in December of 1961 under the auspices of Capitol Records, to which both men were under contract, when at four recording sessions held on successive days the present set of performances was undertaken.

The common ground on which the two met was jazz, that vital and absorbing expressive idiom which is one of the glories of American music. Not only did Cole and Shearing share a deep commitment to this music, but each had perfected a singular mastery in its performance. Cole, let us not forget, had started his career as a jazz pianist and was well on the way to becoming one of the truly great ones until his accelerating success as a popular singer gradually led to his putting aside this aspect of his talents. As a young piano student in Chicago, he had been drawn to the music, and specifically to the playing of Earl "Fatha" Hines, one of the most brilliant, original and influential pianists in all of jazz history. Fired by Hines' compelling, audacious music, Cole set about mastering the rudiments of jazz piano, assimilated a number of other influences, and by the late 1930s had fashioned a mature, distinctive approach of his own, light, graceful and swingingly melodic-much like Teddy Wilson's in fact. His fast-growing command - was evidenced as early as 1936, when he made his first recordings with a sextet led by his bassist brother Eddie Cole.

During the remainder of the decade he sharpened his skills through playing engagements in his native city, which led to his forming a band to tour with the road company of Eubie Blake's Shuffle Along musical revue. The show folded in Long Beach, Ca., but Cole soon found work as a solo pianist in various Southern California nightspots. He formed his celebrated trio for a brief engagement at Los Angeles' Swanee Inn, and proved so popular that the trio was held over for more than a year. Incidentally, it was there, in answer to a patron's insistent requests, that Cole began singing, meeting with such favorable response that he soon was doing it more and more frequently. An engagement at Hollywood's Radio Room, where he was heard by record store proprietor Glenn Wallichs, led to Cole's being asked to join the artist roster of the record firm Wallichs, songwriter Johnny Mercer and film executive B.G. DeSylva had formed in late 1942, Capitol Records.

The rest is, as they say, history. From his very first recording session for the new label Cole achieved success with a song he had written Straighten Up And Fly Right, which reportedly sold half-a-million copies within a few months of its release. In the ensuing years Cole soon had outstripped that promising start, achieving phenomenal success with a long, uninterrupted succession of hit records, more than 75 of his singles placing on the lists of best-selling records from 1944 right up to his untimely death in 1965, many of them among the most successful popular recordings of our times, These were complemented by sizable numbers of long-play albums in which he demonstrated his fetching, seductive way with classic ballad standards, in the interpretation of which he was rivaled only by such superlative vocalists as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and others of this rank, and in occasional instrumental programs which showed he had lost none of his formidable pianistic wizardry.

At much the same time Cole was investigating jazz, George Shearing was doing the same several thousand miles away in London. The blind pianist had first been attracted to the music through the recordings of Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson and other leading American jazz musicians he had heard as a teenager. Like Cole, he taught himself how to play the challenging new music, and by the middle 1930s had progressed so well that he began performing at jam sessions and in small clubs around London, which soon led to his first recordings, made in 1939 for Decca Records. Membership in the orchestra of Claude Bampton, comprised of 17 blind musicians, was followed by solo work, several years as featured pianist with the popular Ambrose Orchestra, and continuing recording activity under his own name, primarily as a soloist, though occasionally with small groups, as he gained in confidence and ability. Through the 1940s, in fact, his domination of his instrument in British jazz circles was virtually uncontested, Shearing topping the annual Melody Maker polls as the nation's foremost pianist seven years running.

A less dedicated or ambitious musician might have been satisfied with this achievement, but not Shearing. He knew that in order to grow further as a player he would have to test himself against the music's best and brightest. While this occasionally was possible in London when, as happened from time to time, he was able to play with visiting American jazz musicians, he felt the best way to go about it would be to place himself in a situation that ensured his being challenged by them on a steady, continuing basis. This, of course, meant moving to the U.S., and specifically to New York City, then as now the major center of jazz activity and a virtual proving ground for the serious player. Accordingly, Shearing made the move in December of 1947 and spent most of the following year performing at New York's Three Deuces, first as a soloist, later leading his own trio and quartet.

In 1949 he made his first recordings as leader of the George Shearing Quintet, one of the most distinctive and freshest-sounding small groups in all of modem jazz. The invigoratingly novel voicing Shearing devised for its instrumentation -piano, guitar, vibraharp, bass and drums-was bright, appealingly elegant and the very epitome of "cool." Graceful, exuberant, finely detailed, easily accessible to the casual listener yet possessing more than enough focused invention to satisfy the most demanding jazz fan, the quintet was an immediate sensation. It quickly became one of the most popular small groups of the period, touring and performing incessantly, and enjoying great popular success with its recordings as well, a number of them, September In The Rain for example, among the most played records of the time. During the 1950s, in fact, the quintet's shimmering, distinctive sound was all but ubiquitous, heard everywhere-on radio and television, in films, theaters and nightclubs, at wedding receptions, country club dances and every like event that called for sophisticated music. In the decades since, it has been one of the most enduringly popular of all instrumental groups and its leader widely regarded for the consistently high standards of poised, elegant musicianship he has maintained in the group, which have made its music so exhilarating and enjoyable.

It was these qualities that made its collaboration with Nat Cole so special. And so apt. For the singer, who had made his earliest vocal recordings with the backing of his own jazz trio, to be accompanied by so adroit and accomplished a group as Shearing's must have been something like coming home to a familiar, welcoming environment. And for Shearing, a more than passable vocalist himself, as he's demonstrated on occasion, working with Cole was a special, joyous experience - as satisfying artistically as it was gratifying personally - one which the pianist recalls with great fondness and joy as one of the high points of his career, more than a quarter-century after it occurred.

As the enclosed compact disc shows so clearly, George's recollection is correct. What he, Cole and co-orchestrator Ralph Carmichael (whose contribution should not pass unmentioned) produced over those four days in December, 1961, was indeed memorable music, as enjoyable and deeply satisfying today as when first recorded. Each man was intimately familiar with, and appreciative of the other's music, which made their collaboration not only possible but stimulating and enjoyable as well. As a result, the recording sessions went smoothly and quickly-and happily, Shearing recalls -producing a program of performances that, because of the mutual respect Cole and Shearing had for one another, breathe warmth and affection and sincerity, And above all else beauty.

It's the presence of this latter quality that has caused Shearing to have, as he notes, worn out several copies of this album over the last two-and-a-half decades. That's something that you and I, thanks to the technological miracle that has given us the compact disc, will never have to worry about. We can play this music as often as George has, and more, and it'll never wear out. And that's something, I think you'll agree, we can take the greatest pleasure in -enduring music in an enduring format, Nat "King" Cole sings - George Shearing plays; we listen and marvel. Again and again and again, as often as we like.”

- Pete Welding

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Quincy Jones - The Zan Stewart Interview

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Frequent visitors to these pages know that their purpose is as much to pay homage to Jazz writers and critics as they are about posting narratives and graphics on various aspects of Jazz and it’s makers.

Jazz writers and critics heighten our awareness of and appreciation for what’s going on in the music.

Zan Stewart’s writings about Jazz have always been among the editorial staff at JazzProfiles’ favorites and you can read why in the following April 1985 Downbeat interview he conducted with Quincy Jones.

Twenty-eight years after its publication, “Q” is still going strong, with now over 60 years in the music business!

© -Zan Stewart/Downbeat, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Quincy Jones, even if you didn't know his name from Adam, even if you didn't know that he is one of contemporary music's main creative sparks, that he was 1983's Producer of the Year, that he's scored 33 films and been responsible for 30 albums, that he's won 15 Grammys, that he's been in the entertainment business for 35 years, even if you didn't know his middle name is Delight, a leisurely look around his Los Angeles office would start to fill in the picture. The walls are adorned with photographs, mementos and awards. There are pictures of heroes and friends like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and pictures of associates, such as Quincy with Michael Jackson or Quincy with his arms around Count Basie. On a side table, next to a phone with 10 lines that never stop flashing, there are blank notepads printed with The Color Purple, the name of the film he's producing. There's a framed collection of platinum discs of Jackson's Thriller, a Jones production which sold an unimaginable-but-true 37 million copies. More or less office center sits a Yamaha electric grand piano. Behind Jones' clutter-free, glass-topped desk is a stained-glass logo for his Qwest label, which he launched in 1981. Beyond all this, there's something intangible, and without getting too cosmic, let's just say there's a presence. After all, Quincy Jones is a man who makes things happen.

Born in 1933, Jones was raised in Seattle and began playing trumpet at an early age. Ray Charles was a childhood friend, and the two often worked and jammed together. A prodigy, Jones was employed by 14 and joined Lionel Hampton at 15. Later, he took a break and began studies at Boston's Berklee College of Music. Soon he was back with Hampton as a trumpeter and arranger, and was quickly adding his touch to sessions with Charles, Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington, Cannonball Adderley and others. He toured the Middle East and South America with Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra, then joined Mercury Records as an A&R man. There he recorded his own dates, such as The Birth of a Band, as well as producing pop hits like Leslie Gore's 1963 smash, "It's My Party."

The year 1963 found Jones composing his first film score, for Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker, and in 1969 he signed with A&M Records, an association that lasted 12 years and resulted in such albums as Walking in Space, Body Heat, and Sounds... And Stuff Like That, the latter his first platinum disc. In 1978 he scored Lumet's film of The Wiz, and made the acquaintance of Michael Jackson. He produced Jackson's 1981 Off the Wall, which was a mere prelude to the stunning success of 1983's Thriller. In addition to The Color Purple, Jones is currently working on a new solo album, which will spotlight Sarah Vaughan and organist Jimmy Smith among as-yet-unnamed others, and is due for May release.

Jones arrived to meet his visitor attired casually in faded denims, a yellow T-shirt, a cardigan sweater composed of bands of warm colors that blended softly together and tan loafers with pale blue and yellow socks. Sipping apple cider (he drinks wine as well, but only with meals, since recovering from two aneurysms in 1974), the personable, convivial Jones talked at length about his life and achievements.

Zan Stewart: I'm one of those who really enjoys your earlier albums, like

Quintessence. Yet in listening to Thriller, I hear a lot of basic stuff there, too, a basic bluesy feel to many tunes...

Quincy Jones: That's why I get so confused. People get all hung up with the evolution of this music and saying, "You're not into jazz anymore." Bullshit. It's all the same thing to me.

Zan Stewart: Do you feel your jazz background is essential to your role of producer of non-jazz music?

Jones: Oh, yeah, sure, in many ways. Philosophically, musically, because those skills enable you to turn on a dime. You don't get hung up with the way things are supposed to be.

Zan Stewart: You've made so many hit records. Is that something you always wanted to do?

Jones: You know, I think every musician in the world would like to make hit records — every musician that ever picked up any instrument. Even a 12-tone player wants what he puts together to appeal to a lot of people. The ideal situation is to do something you like and have everybody in the world like it and buy it, too. I think everybody feels that.

But when I started out, it was different. I have a funny kind of background. I came out of a gospel group, but I had an early interest in big bands, and also worked in an R&B band with Bumps Blackwell up in Seattle, and would go play bebop after hours. That was pure love. Ray Charles was 16; I was 14. Ray would play at clubs like the Black and Tan, and I also played all over town, and then we'd get together at the Elks Club after hours to play bop. In the clubs or at dances, you'd have to play schottisches [Scottish dances], pop songs, R&B, and so on, but when we played at the Elks Club, that was for us.

But at that time—and Cannonball [Adderley] and I used to laugh about this—we were conditioned to try to avoid having our music appreciated by a big audience, especially the young guys who were on the coattails of Bird and Diz. We were their disciples. It was very unhip to have a big following.

I remember playing with Lionel Hampton — who was really the first rock 'n' roll bandleader, even though he had a jazz background — and we were at the Bandbox in New York City, which was next door to Birdland. Clifford Brown, Art Farmer and I were in the trumpet section. We had to wear Bermuda shorts with purple jackets and Tyrolian hats, man, and when we played "Flying Home," Hamp marched the band outside. You have to imagine this — I was 19 years old, so hip it was pitiful, and didn't want to know about anything that was close to being commercial. So Hamp would be in front of the sax section, and beating the drumsticks all over the awning, and soon he had most of the band behind him. But Brownie and I would stop to tie our shoes or do something so we wouldn't have to go outside, because next door was Birdland and there was Monk and Dizzy and Bud Powell, all the bebop idols standing in front at intermission saying, "What is this shit?" You'd do anything to get away.

I was always on the edge. Even as a kid in Seattle, we'd play anything, for strippers, for comedy acts, while at the same time harboring our love for bebop. At that time you didn't want to communicate, but then you had to get it out of you. Herbie Hancock said he had the same problem. It's like that old Sid Caesar joke: "We used to have radar in the band to let us know when we got too close to the melody." It was that kind of attitude.

Stewart: Maybe you weren't asking for appreciation because it wasn't there anyway.

Jones: Well, a funny thing happened at the end of the '40s and the 52nd Street thing. I'm sure people who were closer to it might have a different attitude, but the way it looked from here was that at one point, between '44 and '46, many of the mavericks and rebels, the innovators, they left Jay McShann, Earl Hines and other leaders, and went with Billy Eckstine. It was like a sociological thing, as if they were saying, "We aren't interested in being entertainers anymore. We want to be recognized as artists. That was the first time black musicians ever took that position, at least en masse, like that.

Billy had the first crop of naturally feeling but thinking, seriously thinking musicians, people dealing with polytonals, trying to break a sound barrier, musically. But when they made that decision to not be entertainers, they were taking the risk of losing an audience. And at one point the audience fell totally out, so the musicians said, "Well, we don't care," and they withdrew. There was no interest in entertaining or communicating because there was this search for a new sound.

So we left that creative era and went into the '50s, which was the worst era for pop music. Coming from modern jazz to that poop was horrible. Remember the radio? Tunes like "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window," "Davy Crockett" and so on. It was unbelievable [laughs]. That was the pop scene, but Elvis Presley's appearance changed that whole thing for young white America, because he opened the way for black music to come in.

But back to this hit thing. People want hits — Miles Davis, too [laughs]. To me, there's something retarded about someone saying, "I don't want anybody to like my music." That's insane. But I can see saying, "I don't care if anybody likes what I do." We've all gone through that. Music is an incredible animal. It's an absolute, like math. You can't hold it; it just floats around out there.

Stewart: Speaking of your own music, we hear you have a new album in the works. How do you start a new project?

Jones: Well, it's hard to say. It's like I sketch a physical thing in my mind — like colors, contours and shapes. I literally see pictures and colors. These undefined shapes come through first, then the secondary colors. Then I have to be patient; I have to sit and wait until it becomes clearer and clearer. I may formulate maybe 18 ideas of different things that I feel, that I really want to do and, in the end, I may use nine of them. Maybe in the last part of the project, I'll find two other things that'll divert you. But I just let it flow, let whatever happens happen, then I start boilin' and get specific. You can't capture anything until you get specific. Then you have to see if what you're hearing and seeing in your mind, you can execute in the studio. It's a funny process, man. I don't know a thing about it. I just do it.

Stewart: Will this album follow a process, like building track by track or will it be more like a "live" date?

Jones: Well, some things I start with a drum track and then add. Others won't take that form. I hope it's unlike anything I've ever done before. That's a nice feeling, to come out each time and try to pretend that you've never done any of this before. The worst thing is to say, "Well, this worked before, so we've got to do more of this." I could never get into that. But sometimes you can't help it, in that the sounds will be similar because it's your own soul. But what's great about producing your own album is that you play the orchestras, you play the singers. Nobody can tell you, "You can't do that." That's the real difference. Your own album should represent what you want to do. It's not like working with a singer, because no matter how good the relationship is, they may say, "Well, I don't know; let's try it my way." That's why the freedom is so nice.

Stewart: What's the difference between producing Michael Jackson and producing Frank Sinatra, whom you worked with on last year's LA Is My Lady.

Jones: Well, Michael starts with basic tracks, then adds overdubs, then fixing— you've got to put it together like an erector set, and try to help Michael realize, or embellish, what he had. As we said, the process takes about three months. Sinatra came into the office here, and started with a list of things he wanted to do. I had two or three suggestions. He came in at 2 p.m., and in less than two hours we had rehearsed, had keys and routines on 10 songs. That's the way he's always recorded. Two months later in New York, we record. Before he gets there, the band runs down all the tunes, because Frank is one take, that's it. If the band's not in shape, he leaves them behind. And when you're recording live like he does, you can't take that chance, because when his voice is in their mikes, you can't take it out if the band sounds like shit. His booth is open, and the horns are hitting his microphone, hitting him right in the face. So, on his last session, he came in at 7, and at 8:20, baby, we went home. None of that three-month stuff.

To me, there's no such thing as good and bad in either way you record. I started recording live, but it doesn't make any difference just as long as you're capturing the real feeling of what was supposed to happen. We have this expression: leave God a little room to come through, give him 20 to 30 percent in the room. In recording, you're talking magic; for it to really happen, a lot of magic has to go down.

Stewart: What else is on the front burner?

Jones: I'm producing my first film. I've wanted to do this for a long time. There's a book that tore my heart out—it's so beautiful, written by Alice Walker, called The Color Purple. Reading it has been one of the most incredible experiences I've had in my life. For 15 years people have wanted me as executive producer of films, mainly to get the musical connection and just have me be a spectator. But I want to be in the physical process of making the film. That's what's nice. It's an unbelievable project, just loaded with rich music that dates from 1905 to 1940, so the music of Scott Joplin, Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith and Coleman Hawkins will be included. Imagine a film where part of the tapestry is a Hawk solo and one of the leads is just mumbling along with the solo. That turns me on.

That reminds me. There was an album, I think it was Back in Flight, which if you played at 45 rpm instead of 33 rpm, you'd hear a version of "There Will Never Be Another You" that sounds just like Bird. Hearing that blew me away because you could see the roots and the connection. It opened up a big door for my head; the nuances were identical, all of them.

Stewart: So the film gives you a chance to work on…

Jones: The evolution, yeah, exactly. It's amazing how things work out. You don't plan it. I started around 1970, just digging and digging — really didn't even know why, except I was just interested in it — the evolution of our music. After being in the business 25 years, I felt it would be fun to go back and see the exact sources.

Research. I thought it would take two to three months, but I got hung up, ultimately going back to 479 AD to the Moors, the Spanish inquisition, then following 34 tribes from West Africa to Brazil up to the West Indies, then on to New Orleans, Virginia and so forth. It just blew me away. The whole idea of drums being banned in 1672 because the slave owners knew it was a communication device. To ban the drum did something to the music. That was in the Protestant colonies. In the Catholic colonies they were getting down — the Spanish, French — with food, music, everything. That's where it all happened. A lot of people were oppressed and restricted by the Anglicans. But when it was time to get rhythmic again, everything had to be redefined rhythmically, so a hybrid music came out of this. The film plays a role in underscoring all this.

Stewart: Any new musical projects besides the new album?

Jones: I'm going to do a musical with Mike Nichols after The Color Purple, and that will probably incorporate a lot of the evolutionary things. It's a piece called Speak Easy, so it's another thing about that time, the '20s and '30s.

Stewart: So here you are producing all this modern music like Michael Jackson, and then turn around and dig way back.

Jones: That's what's great about it —  the whole menu. Why not, man? I love the notion of what that's all about, the whole range. It's so real and so strong. I love having the chance to go from a Michael Jackson situation to my own album to The Color Purple, where we have a really valid reason for using the music of that period, other than simply wanting to expose it.

Stewart: As the music changes, say from swing to bebop and so on, it seems

then moved to 2/4 with Dixie and even [Jimmie] Lunceford, and so forth. Then Basie, Benny Moten, you're talking four to the floor. Then it kept accelerating into eighth notes, then triplets and 16ths and then farther, like [Billy] Cobham and Elvin Jones incorporating the African polyrhythms. Then you come back to disco, and it's just the same thing as Basie. It's always fascinating. The current rhythm section sound changes almost every six months. That pendulum really swings, going from four to the floor to the most complex things with the drum machines. You get more flexibility with them, but the machines are just a reaction to the disco thing, so when they get out of that framework, it's like escaping from prison, so you get [Herbie Hancock's] "Rockit." Music is always reacting to itself, you get to max velocity, you've got to slow down.

You can see that pendulum swing throughout all American music. I wouldn't trade that era I came up in for anything. We got a taste of all of it. There I was involved with Swing Era people like Basie, Duke, Lionel, then Dizzy, and pop people like Stevie [Wonder] and Michael [Jackson].

Stewart: Working with both jazz and pop artists seems to be quite natural for you.

Jones: I was always ambidextrous. Of course, I did The Genius of Roy Charles in '58, but even before that, I was double-gated. I did a lot of things with Stitt, Brownie [Clifford Brown], Art Farmer; but by the same token, I was doing projects with Big Maybelle, Chuck Willis, the Clovers, LaVern Baker. It started as a kid, because I had to have that broad range of knowledge to work in Seattle. Ray Charles used to say, "If you just deal with the pure soul of all music, everything from the schottisches to blues, you'll be all right." What a musician he is. He taught me how to read music in Braille.

Stewart: Given your wide-ranging background, what, if anything, constitutes the Quincy Jones sound?

Jones: I don't know. I know that material is the key. The song is king; melody is king. I fight strongly to have the last word on material going into an album. If somebody else picks the songs, I don't know if I really want to participate. I get called a dictator for that, but I don't care. You cannot polish doo-doo. It's very important that you're hard on everybody, including yourself, in terms of selecting material. I'm always straddling a fence to get things that will penetrate and commu-

nicate, but still have a certain musical validity, not be musically idiotic. In pop music you're dealing with anything from 300,000 to 37 million records. I don't know how to figure out what 37 million people are going to like. So far we've been lucky We've had songs that make the hair go up on your arm. If it moves you, you're lucky if it gets to all those other people.

Stewart: While picking the songs for Thriller, did the hair go up on your arms?

Jones: Oh, sure. We cut nine songs, at first, and had it finished, and then threw four out to get four more that were really strong. That's a nice psychological thing to do, because you're competing with yourself. We had just come off an album that sold eight million [Off the Wall], and it's scary to go back in after that kind of home run. Our thinking was, "If we could just catch up with half of this thing, we'd be happy," and little did we know it'd do what it did. To me, half of commerciality is sincerity. It's gotta be real.

Stewart: How many times can you listen to a record like Thriller?

Jones: I can't listen to it anymore, no. The first six months after we made it, I couldn't touch it, except to listen to the singles we were going to release. We had a serious deadline on this record, since Donna Summer's album took longer than it should have, so when we got to Michael, we only had three months to do Thriller. That's pretty scary after a record that did eight million. On top of this, Steven Spielberg asked us to do the E.T Storybook, so we had three months to do both. It almost killed us, but we made it. I had two studios going. We just rocked around the clock until we finished.

Then we had a scary thing happen. We finished E.T, and Michael's record was down to mix and master. We were really tired by then, but you have to keep the enthusiasm up. So we mixed the record and were ready to have it mastered. We finished about 8 a.m., and Michael came by my house and slept on my couch. We had to be back at the studio by noon, and Bruce [Swedien, Quincy's No. 1 engineer] was going to bring the test pressing so we could listen to it before it went out. This is the record, you know? Everybody was nervous to hear what was going to happen. Well, we had been in such a hurry that we had put 25 and 27 minutes on a side, and you know that's a no-no, because it takes the sound away. We'd like 18 minutes on a side, max. That record sounded like shit, man. We knew it wouldn't hold. It was terrible. Michael cried. So we decided to hell with the deadline, 'cause they were really on our backs. So we took time off and came back, took one tune a day and brought this baby home. And that's what we did. If that record had gone out, it would have never been over, it would have been a disaster. I'll never forget that day. It was horrible.

Stewart: What was so bad about the record?

Jones: Basically the mixes were sloppy because we were hurrying. Overall, there were a lot of bad judgments from being hasty and tired. Adrenaline turns your ears into something else.

Stewart: Switching channels again, you were the first man to record an electric bass in 1953, and a synthesizer in 1964. How has the synthesizer affected modern music?

Jones: It's expanded the vocabulary. People always talk about it replacing acoustic instruments. I think that's ridiculous. If you've got that kind of an ear, maybe it can, but I think the effective usage is to have the synths do what they can do specifically. They expand the alphabet from 26 to 40 letters. They have a personality — millions of sonic designs — that can't come out of other instruments. The ear knows that the sounds aren't familiar, aren 't from an acoustic instrument. By the same token, there's no synth yet that can get the sound of 24 string players with bodies there, skin on skin.

Stewart: Still, electronics seem to be the way many players are going.

Jones: It's not the same thing; believe me, it's not. I've used all the string tricks and electronic strings, and there's nothing that replaces acoustic instruments. The vibratos are not the same, for instance. They're doing a good job with samplers, but mechanically, it's very difficult to deal with that kind of humanity with an electronic instrument. A joy for me is to have the synthesized-string sound set up the fabric of what the strings are going to be. and then have a lap dissolve and have the real strings come in right underneath it. That's what I love, when they really imvi each other head on in an accommodating way, join each other, strut their feathers in front of each other, enjoy being with each other. That might sound silly, but that's how I feel. I've been in the business for 35 years, and I've seen a lot of trends, but you've still got to have human beings. I don't see any machines blowing trumpet players out of work.

Stewart: Does your presence in the studio have an effect on the outcome of a product?

Jones: I think so, because I only work with artists I respect and love for what they do. Most of the time I try to put a musician in a situation where he should be comfortable. But there are times, like the world's greatest guitarist who couldn't read. You put him in a situation with 44 players, and there's a psychological tendency to freak out. I used to have that problem with Basie. I mean, he'd see seven sharps and head for the bathroom. But it doesn't matter, man, because there are guys who can read around the corner who couldn't touch Basie with two notes he'd play. So once the musician learns to trust me, learns that he can go without the net, that I won't let him fall, we have a great time. Toots Thielemans says, "You always push the right buttons on me and make me play my ass off." But that's only with someone you really love, you know. You put them in a situation where they can really be themselves.”