Quincy Jones relaxes in interview withTerry Gross (2001, interview for Fresh Air No. 6)

Thin ties and slim slacks were in vogue when award-winning producer  and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Quincy Jones hit the 1950s jazz scene.

Jones as a teen, played the trumpet and performed on the Seattle jazz scene with musical icon Ray Charles. He  later got the call to join a musical powder keg led by dynamic bandleader Lionel Hampton. Noted Fresh Air Host Terry Gross asked a 80-year-old Jones to recall his glory days in  Hampton’s band and reflect on his production of “Thriller”  in a 2001 interview.

Gross lets Jones play in his sweet spot during their relaxed chat. He takes her lead and listeners hear moments where he played with the luminaries of jazz: Charlie Parker, Art Farmer and Charles Mingus.

“And I loved Hampton for having that ambidexterity because he liked great music, but he also liked to level his audience and take no prisoners. Until they were wrung out, he was not satisfied,” Jones told Gross in 2001.

But those amazing musical geniuses led Jones to pick up his pen and arrange/produce music - admitting they were out of his league.

She asked: “Why didn’t you solo more often?”

A salty question for an artist, yet by this time he is at ease and takes in stride sharing about writing taking more time from playing; others being better. Gross detailed background research is evident as she pulls out Jones experience and inquires about his successes as a young talent and failings as he didn’t make the grade as a No. 1 trumpeter.

She laces the radio interview with musical clips from major artists who recorded works produced by Jones.

“Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars and let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars. In other words, hold my hand; in other words, baby, kiss me,” sang by old blue eyes, Frank Sinatra.

Jones celebrates the dexterity he learned from playing various sets from comedy clubs, strip clubs to tennis all-white clubs.  Also how that shaped his ability to producer for the greats of his youthful era and into the 1990s with Michael Jackson’s all-time best seller “Thriller”.

She whisk him through his connection with Jackson in an attempt to add a valuable musical moment but also to draw in younger audience, who might have felt lost by the earlier jazz era focus.

Mystery Person. No.

Cropped cuts in fire red or long curls in burnt brownish blond,  this six-time Grammy winner is known for wearing more hair than clothes. Her fashion sets global trends and her voice has won her #1 Billboard Dance status for years. She is BFF with Katy Perry. Her staccato dance moves and swinging hips remind fans of her island roots. Landing on VOGUE for three times and on the "sexiest women alive" list at GQ - her life and influence are nonstop.

She collaborates with rap royalty Jay-Z and Kanye West. Her tracks fill headphones from US to London, and her name fills sold-out stadiums. But a girl just wants to be loved ... in her quest, she landed on the police blotter after being hit by famed boyfriend. Domestic violence advocates and mothers were heated: rallying online for her to cut the abusive man and denounce  the act. Yet this diva drove into the storm, continuing to date the soul singer. Headlines aside, she has been a chart topper since meeting  a producer in her native Barbados. Sharing the stage with Hoova to Eminem. She has joined the chart-topping ranks of Madonna, Lady Gaga and others.

The world has answered her call to turn the music up: "Hey mister, hey mister DJ, turn the music up!"

Who is she?

Favorite Writing. Junot Diaz "Drown" No. 2

I became a bibliophile for the works of Junot Diaz after a random day flipping pages of “Drown” at a San Jose bookstore.

Diaz has a swift and honest modern voice. His self-abrasive tone won my empathy; and his use of Dominican cultural cues, drew my laughter and interest in his short stories. 

“Drown” is a gathering of scenes on the back of an autobiographic arc.  Diaz explores youth in Dominican Republic (DR) using the first-person narrative. He writes as the younger brother to his nemesis Rafa. He shares bruising words slung at him by Rafa in boyhood wars for verbal one-upmanship. Vibrant and intoxicating images place you in moments with this duo: him at age 9 and Rafa at 12.

Arriving at a remote DR campo to visit their relatives for the summer, they are away from their mother and their Santo Domingo hometown. The brothers turn from being distant to being comrades hunting for fun, san TV and electricity. The youngest also seeks details on transforming from age 9 into his cool, attractive brother -- who brags about his adventures with girls.

A dry, barren landscape has them trapped but Diaz words unleash a masterful, literary tome punctuated with street poetics for readers to explore. He uses form to tell and his experiences to break the ice.

Rafa , who was older and expected more, woke every morning pissy and dissatisfied. He stood out on the patio in his shorts and looked over the mountains, at the mists that gathered like water, at the brucal tress that blazed like fires on the mountain. This, he said, is shit. 

Worse than shit, I said. 

 Yeah, he said, and when I get home, I’m going to go crazy – chinga all my girls and then chinga everyone else’s...  

Tio Miguel had chores for us (mostly we chopped wood for the smokehouse and bright water up from the river) but we finished these as easy as we threw off our shirts, the rest of the day punching us in the face. We caught jaivas in the streams and spent hours walking across the valley to see girls who were never there; we set traps for jurones we never caught and toughened up our roosters with pails of cold water. We worked hard at keeping busy. 

"Drown" short stories – Junot Diaz, Riverhead Books, 1996

Bright Words, Word #1

Languid

“Some reefs,” he says, “are kinetic, like an abstract by Jackson Pollock.” Kimbe – Doubilet’s memory reef – is languid, “like an Impressionist painting, a Monet.” -- Newman, C. (2013, November) Paradise Revisited. National Geographic, 224(5)70.

Dictionary: (adj.) showing or having very little strength, energy or activity; sluggish; weak; lacking force or quickness of movement.

My take: U.S. Olympic gold medalist Shaun White’s dominance on the halfpipe was wiped out by his languid snowboard run over the powder in Sochi 2014, he fell to fourth and halted America’s 15-year reign in the sport.

About Me

Fast. Slow. Funny. Intense. Selfish. Generous. The adventure that is life has shaped me into a creative shooter who can thrive in the moment.

Quick moves back by calculated motives, drive my path. I attended college in San Jose, worked in the Bay Area and then jetted out to the Midwest in the chill of winter. Arrivng in the heat of Red Wings hockey season, I fell into a print post for a historic weekly in Detroit. The switch in beliefs and tactics in that region of the country was intense and cumbersome.

I found an escape route. A bonus at work and a desire to see the ‘land that never sleeps’, took me to the diversity and freedom I love ...Harlem, New York. How New York calls, I love that city.

I worked across the spectrum in the city: film, print, television. Enjoyed the arts: theatre, music and free readings by acclaimed writers in Central Park. Awoke to days of runs in the park, assisting on sets for documentaries and TV series and long brunches with mentors.

High blood sugar racing through my mother’s body, and demands for help from family, lead me back to the West. Now I am seeking transformation. Hoping to embrace the digital world of California media and forge new ground for diverse voices. Hopefully I can ‘up’ my writing skills and scrub away inhibitions about past struggles with grammar.