Posts Tagged ‘Quincy Jones’

Just in time for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, Matthew Garrahan, west coast correspondent for the Financial Times, has put together a rousing profile of a man who is the very embodiment of the dream King once famously spoke of.

Garrahan chatted for three hours with Quincy Jones at the mogul’s expansive Bel Air home, which he makes good use of to frame the article. In the piece, he touches on Jones’ humble Chicago beginnings, brief dalliance with heroin, stories of working with Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson, and much more. There are also details about Jones’ increasing ties to China and the rest of Asia, cemented by his role as artistic adviser to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics:

The main Asian push begins in March: in addition to being its [new] chairman, Jones is now executive producer of the [Singapore based] Asia Academy of Music Arts & Sciences’ inaugural awards show, envisaged as a kind of Asian Grammys.

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AP Hollywood correspondent Sandy Cohen has scored a solid Oprah Winfrey interview after bypassing the usual PR channels:

Winfrey tells Cohen she was as surprised as anyone that she was selected to receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Not because she doesn’t think she is worthy, but rather because she recognizes that her body of big screen acting work is slim:

“”I understand people thinking, `Where’s her list of credentials for films?’” Winfrey said, “but I don’t think there’s room for criticism in the do-good department…”

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Actor-turned-musician Jeff Bridges has an album coming out in August, and he was good enough to share a few tracks Tuesday night at the Troubadour. FishbowlLA managed to score an invite to the private concert, and arrived just in time to hear Quincy Jones introduce Bridges as “my baby brother.”

Bridges proved as charming and affable on stage as he is on screen, and his country-folk ditties were a hit with the crowd. The Bridges family was in attendance, and the highlight of the night had Jeff singing “The Man in Me” to his wife Sue. Pierce Brosnan and album producer T Bone Burnett were spotted in the crowd, and standing just behind us were actors Ryan Reynolds and Olivia Wilde, looking cozy.

After the show we chatted with Rachel Reynolds of KCRW and rock critic Laura Ferreiro, both of whom confessed to being uncharacteristically starstruck. “I think he’s the world’s most likeable guy,” said Reynolds. Agreed.

Last night at the Los Angeles Film Festival, LA Times film critic Kenneth Turan hosted a panel discussion about the late director Sidney Lumet. Joining him at the front of LA Live’s Regal Cinemas Theater 12 were actor Andy Garcia, composer Quincy Jones, and writer-producer Frank Pierson, who won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award in 1975 for the Lumet drama Dog Day Afternoon.

That movie was originally intended to be more comedic. In fact, in the Columbia Pictures executive suite, it was dismissively nicknamed The Boys in the Bank. But everything changed one day when Pierson and Lumet were confronted by the sight of star Al Pacino, trying to make his point very dramatically by walking around on all fours and barking like a dog. “True story,” Pierson reminded.

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From Jeff Bercovici at AOL’s Daily Finance:

Vibe magazine, the urban-music magazine founded in 1993 by Quincy Jones, is the latest victim of the media recession. Multiple sources both within and outside the magazine confirmed that it is shutting down.

via FBNY

“Buzz Aldrin is an astronaut, a hero, and a hip hop legend. He hits the studio with Snoop Dogg and Talib Kweli to record his latest track, Rocket Experience. Quincy Jones and Soulja Boy also weigh in on Buzz’s lyrical genius and impact on the music world.”