How France helped Quincy Jones become the undisputed master of music in the United States – Ouest-France evening edition

For seventy years, Quincy Jones, juggernaut of American music, was considered the world's greatest, most historic and impactful popular producer. In 1957, he stayed in Paris for a few years and allowed his vision of music to be transformed by an authoritative musician: Nadia Boulanger.

Was he the most important American music producer of the 20th^e century ? Maybe so. Quincy Jones died at the age of 91 on November 3, 2024, closing a life spent alongside the greats, like him, from Michael Jackson to Ray Charles, from Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Sinatra.

In 2022, he still had the strength and spirit to publish 12 Notes On Life And Creativitya sort of autobiography focused on the key elements and events of his life, those which shaped his taste for music and the development of his artistic personality. Why twelve? Following the release of the book, he gave an explanation to the American magazine Publishers Weekly : “When I went to study in Paris in the 1950s with the great teacher Nadia Boulanger, she told me: “Quincy, there are only twelve notes. Until there is a thirteenth, learn everything you can about what others have done with these twelve notes. » And that's exactly what I did. »

“Musical wonders”

Quincy Jones' productivity at the highest level, his longevity spanning from his beginnings in jazz in the 1950s to pop in the 2000s, would, by his admission, not have been possible without the contribution of Nadia Boulanger, so , French theorist and composer born 1887 and died in 1979. In her Parisian apartment, every Wednesday she brought together some of the biggest names in classical music, such as her great friend Igor Stravinsky, and students from the Paris Conservatoire, barely teenagers , for extremely popular lessons in listening and musical analysis, which the protagonist described as “course of musical wonder”.

Read also: A festival in tribute to Nadia and Lili Boulanger, orchestrated from Trouville

This corner of the IX^e district of Paris, located more precisely on rue Ballu, has attracted aspiring foreigners ready to travel thousands of kilometers to be accepted there. Including Quincy Jones, who, in 1957, arrived in the French capital to try his luck in the local jazz scene and learn from Nadia Boulanger, nicknamed “Mademoiselle”.

The “song” of possibilities

At the time, the American, only 23 years old, was already playing pianist with big names in jazz across the Atlantic. His meeting with the professor opens aesthetic doors that he did not suspect, increasing the field of possibilities and helping to propel him as musical director of the very young French record company Barclay, future very large in the sector. At the end of the 1960s, his apprenticeship with Nadia Boulanger completed, he went on concert tours with big bands throughout Europe, before financial problems pushed him to return home, then to take a position on the Mercury label.

The rest of his career is another long story where some of the best-selling albums and singles in the world intersect. They all carry, somewhere, the buried trace of Nadia Boulanger and her subtle musical wonders.