Quincy Jones: The Many Lives of Q

Aired 2008-06-13

This first part, From the Jazz Age to Hollywood: 1933-1974, spans Quincy's childhood in Chicago, reveals how he discovered music almost by chance and features his first professional engagement at the age of 18, playing trumpet in the Lionel Hampton band. It also charts his Hollywood career writing music for some of the most iconic films of the 1970s and concludes with his life-threatening brain aneurysm.

Aired 2008-06-20

Second of a two-part documentary which celebrates the life and career of top American jazz musician, composer, arranger, record producer and entrepreneur, Quincy Jones. It charts Quincy's recovery from a brain anyeurism and looks at how he went on to produce the biggest selling album of all time, Michael Jackson's Thriller. He also produced and conducted 1985's We Are the World - the American music industry's response to the Ethiopian famine - which is still the biggest selling single of all time. That same year he ventured into new territory, turning Hollywood producer for The Color Purple. Quincy returned to music with the iconic 1989 album Back on the Block, cross-fertilising the talents of 66 artists including Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Patti Austin and six young rappers.