Quincy Jones, the maestro of the recording studio

Quincy Jones, who died on Sunday at 91, was the master of a nearly vanished mode of record making that relied on groups of talented musicians working under the finely attuned ear of a producer. (Wikipedia)

By Ben Sisario

“Quincy called me.”

That is the opening line of the best stories told by some of the best musicians in the world over the last half-century or so, as they recount being recruited for recording sessions by Quincy Jones, the super-producer whose work was often as much a matter of casting as of capturing sounds on tape.

Eddie Van Halen got the call one day in 1982, to add a pyrotechnic guitar solo to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” He declined credit for it, but after Jackson’s death in 2009, Van Halen said that session was one of the “fondest memories in my career.”

Greg Phillinganes, the synthesizer virtuoso who began his career with Stevie Wonder, got many such calls as an in-demand session player, working on Jones-helmed albums by Jackson, Donna Summer and James Ingram, among others.

“By virtue of getting a call,” Phillinganes recalled this week, “that was the endorsement that you were worthy of being there” — an induction into an elite circle that included both big stars and supremely skilled but lesser-known musicians, each chosen with intention by Jones for what they could bring to a project.

Jones, who died on Sunday at 91, was the master of a nearly vanished mode of record-making that relied on groups of talented musicians working under the finely attuned ear of a producer. For decades, he had many of the pop world’s best players on call, and — in what could be a career-making enlistment or just the umpteenth studio gig — would hire them to spice up a track with a guitar lick, or smooth its contours with a synthesizer part, or ground it with just the right beat.

That system of producers, studio players and engineers working together in a big room, once central to the pop industry, has been gradually dismantled through the rise of home recording and increasingly sophisticated technology, and by shrunken label budgets. But in Jones it may have had its greatest exponent.

In his memoir, “Q” (2001), Jones expended far more ink on the preparations for Jackson’s 1979 album “Off the Wall” — especially choosing studio personnel — than in describing its actual recording.

“I’ve always been blessed to work with some of the best in the business,” Jones wrote, after running down the list of players, “and these guys were not only like a family of friends but like my own musical mafia: every one was a black-belt master in his own category.”

A glance through the credits on Jones’ albums across the decades reveals a kind of rotating hall-of-fame roster of studio players. From the 1960s into the early ’70s, it was filled with jazz luminaries like Ray Brown, Toots Thielemans and Herbie Hancock. By the ’80s, he was leaning on rock players; “Thriller” features four members of Toto, most prominently its drummer, Jeff Porcaro, and guitarist Steve Lukather.

Jones was well into his career before he ever called himself a producer. Born in 1933, he played trumpet in Lionel Hampton’s touring jazz band in the early ’50s, and studied classical composition in Paris under Nadia Boulanger, whose other students included Aaron Copland and Philip Glass. It was only in 1963, Jones wrote, when he recorded Lesley Gore’s pop classic “It’s My Party” as an executive at Mercury Records, that he truly learned the job of a producer.

“Before then,” Jones wrote, “I never knew what a producer was or did.”

In truth, he had already been involved in some fantastic albums by then, arranging gorgeous vocal jazz with Helen Merrill and hot big-band tunes on his friend Ray Charles’ LP “Genius + Soul = Jazz.”

By the 1970s, Jones was firmly established as a pop producer, and his history in jazz and film scoring gave him extensive contacts, and deep respect, among musicians.

“Quincy was the ultimate alchemist,” Phillinganes said. “He understood the strengths and the sensibilities of the musicians he hired. He understood who could do what. And he helped to foster that and bring out the best of everyone that worked with him.”

That process was exacting but could still leave room for serendipity. Lukather first got the call at age 23, to contribute guitar to Jones’ solo album “The Dude” (1981). In an interview, he said that Jones gave him a chord chart for the ballad “Just Once” — Ingram, its singer, was another newcomer in “Q” world then — but let him craft his own part, giving feedback along the way.

Yet at each session, it was clear to everyone in the room who was in charge. “Quincy was the general,” vocal arranger Tom Bahler says in “The Greatest Night in Pop,” the 2024 documentary about the sessions for “We Are the World,” the 1985 charity single that Jones produced.

In footage from that session, Jones stands sternly at the recording console, calmly directing more than 30 of the biggest stars of the era — among them Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Jackson, Kenny Rogers and Cyndi Lauper — as they sing the song’s chorus, watching Jones intently for cues and affirmation.

Sometimes the job involved reassuring the world’s most beloved recording artists that their work was good enough to meet the standards of Quincy Jones. For “We Are the World,” Dylan struggled at the mic on his solo part. “I don’t think that’s any good at all,” he complains at one point.

Jones takes off his headphones and walks over. “You killed it,” the producer tells him.

“If you say so,” Dylan replies with a laugh, and they hug.