Speaker OK, we’ll take it up. When I met Quincy, I was an actress working on a show called The Mod Squad was my last year and I’ve been working on it for four years. And when I met him, I you know, I know I didn’t want to go any further in terms of working at all. I just knew I had to finish that one year and I did. But I couldn’t wait to get it over with so that we could, you know, just be together and start a family.
Speaker That’s great. Referring to when you said, you know, I wanted to move on. How did you know you met Quincy? I mean, we just ready to have a family or you wanted to change your priority?
Speaker Absolutely. I never I I wanted to be an actress and I wanted to be known, but I never really, really, really loved it. Like, I would find out that I would love a family and a husband. So always in my heart, that’s what I knew I wanted. And I wanted it more than that. And the first time I met Quincy, he was still married. And I just was so drawn to him, you know, never knowing, like, that’s my husband, but feeling very, very drawn to him. And I didn’t meet him again till after he had broken up with his second wife. And that was maybe almost two years later. So I kind of looked at him maybe as baby making material because he always used to say to me, all you say to me is, I want a baby. I want a baby. And it was true. That’s I knew I wanted to be with him and I knew I wanted babies. I knew I wanted his baby. So in terms of working again, I didn’t I didn’t care. I didn’t even occur to me that I would ever have to work again or want to work again. I was happy for it to be over and it wasn’t the happiest life I’d let a very lonely life up until I met Quincy.
Speaker I wish I could I wish my wife could do the same things, you know, but everybody’s different, you know, everyone’s different.
Speaker Plus, I was very young. It was like this man who I could put the whole world into him. And he came into my life and that was it.
Speaker It was like I knew, you know, not to want to sling dirt in any way about his second marriage, because that’s not the purpose of this. But did he ever express sort of what he was looking for in a relationship with you? That would be different from that. Maybe. Why that, you know, obviously hadn’t yet totally separate.
Speaker Right. I think for Quincy, with his two marriages, he was looking for the same thing. And every marriage in that was family. That’s all he’s ever really looked for. And he didn’t have it with the first because he was on the road. He was 19 years old and he couldn’t form that family unit with a second. He didn’t have it, I think, because of personal and emotional issues. And but he was still he’s always been looking for family. And when he found me, I had come from a good family. I wanted that. I wanted very much for him to heal whatever wasn’t right in his family that he came from, that was very, very important to me. And then those values just matched up. And that’s, you know, that’s why the chemistry was so strong in that way. He was really looking for what I felt I could offer him. And I was looking for from him for many men. But there was Quincy, you know, that protectiveness, that affection, that knowing that, you know, no matter what I did or no matter what I did or how my behavior manifested itself, there will always be that loving person there to say it’s OK to call me and say it’s good. I love you the way you are.
Speaker You met Quincy and there was this kind of immediate reaction. But then if you wanted to learn more about the music and there’s things that you bought by a number of things that surprised you, what surprised you at that time in terms of music?
Speaker I had no idea the depth of his training of his of his work on the road.
Speaker You know, that he had done a musical, that he had taken a whole band over to Europe and tried to produce a full on musical that he had been, you know, like a protege at a very young age. He started when he was 14. I think the classical background is what really, really excited me about his work and then to hear his body of work. And then when we met, he had just made smacking water, Jack, which was that first leap into sort of a pop. I don’t want to call it fusion, I think. But I guess, you know, it was it was jazz and pop and it was one of those that I think was one of the first albums ever that fused the two modes of music. And but and then on top of that, to hear his scores, that he was a composer, orchestrator, composer, trumpet player, conductor. And his scores I mean, I did eventually work with him on a movie, Olá, which was an incredible thrill to see how he worked with that. Just the mind was amazing, not only the talent for the music, but the way the mind worked around them and wrapped itself around the music. That was all a surprise. Everything about him was a surprise. The depth of his musical ability, his musical genius.
Speaker Did you ever have a movie on? Yeah. Tell me about that sort of experience. Because I know mostly you’d given up. And that’s one of my questions. You know what? I’m not doing film scores. But first, speak to, you know, there’s this machine in your house. How do you work with it? It goes away.
Speaker I was living in a very small house. And after we met, it was so instantaneous that he just moved in. It was like two weeks later he was in with his staff and went to a part of his stuff. Was that Moviola, which I’d never seen and which I’m sure a lot of viewers won’t even know what it is, because it’s it’s archaic. But it was how you know, how movies were scored.
Speaker It’s just somebody flashing the hotel.
Speaker Can you do such a great story? Let’s rephrase so that we could use that first art show picture of your house, if you would.
Speaker That has not gone.
Speaker But I don’t think you could ever find how it was. But I can describe that room to you completely.
Speaker All started when you first met.
Speaker Moved into your little house very quickly after I met Quincy. He moved in within two weeks into my little house. It was that little tiny matchbox, two bedroom house. And we took the one other bedroom, which wasn’t ours, and we put the Moviola in it. And the Moviola, you know, for a lot of viewers who don’t know, is is how they used to score movies, which is it looks like it’s it’s it has a screen, a small screen, and you literally crack. That’s what I remember is cranking it. And he moved that into the bedroom and he was scoring a film called The Getaway, and which I believe was Sam Peckinpah, was it? We have it was Sam Peckinpah, brilliant director, and he had the film there. And he I he let me watch the process, which was fascinating because you go frame by frame with that every single frame. And this is after he had composed the score, which was amazing anyway. And just many, many nights of him being hunched over the Moviola. And you can hear, you know, you could hear it. It sounds like you’re in the back of a theater. You just hear the voices of the actors. It’s kind of a raw thing. You can hear like their their voices and and the film moving at the same time. And. And he actually let me do a little bit on that film. What he’d let me do is find source music and tell me how to put it in and where to put it in. So I learned I learned from that. And that score was amazing. I don’t know if you know that. Score the score for the get away. It was it was beautiful. And he also wrote a beautiful theme song that we recorded, Alan. Marilyn Bergman wrote the lyrics. And we ended up going down to the studio and singing it as a duet, which was so cool for us because neither one of us can sing such a sweet experience. Did that end up in the film? Not with our voices, but it was it was the the the the late motif.
Speaker I think you sang the demo, I guess. No, but it was. It was. Well, it was the score. It was the core of the score. Was that beautiful, beautiful song that he wrote. And the first line is drop the ball of time and let it all and rabel and let it be the road we travel.
Speaker Very beautiful. Yeah. See, every time.
Speaker Why didn’t I see that? Oh you have to see that for a while since you mentioned, you know, Quincy singing.
Speaker Tell me about the first time you’ve got an album. You heard Quincy singing.
Speaker Well, I believe he sang on Smack Water Jack Rice. It was the first time I heard him saying and I think the first time he really sang professionally was on smack water, Jack. And it was really funny. It was like a typical trumpet player.
Speaker You know, was sort of the, you know, no vibrato. And I thought it was so cute and but it was really, really funny. And he was trying to sound like Marvin Gaye wasn’t quite like Marvin Gaye, but it was sweet. And he loved it. He used to love to sing.
Speaker I don’t think you told the story about his father. I heard it was sitting well with you. I never tried composing either.
Speaker Exactly. He was not much of a singer, but it was it was sweet. I mean, that time of meeting him during that time and seeing that album and his whole demeanor on the cover, that album with a big afro and the you know, and making that effort to sing. And it was just a very poignant time for me because it was a crossroads for him. And I really had known him through the the hard, you know, jazz and the basey days and the even walking in space, which we were talking about. I was right after walking in space, I really met him at the time when he made that transition away.
Speaker Those albums that come up that you were there for me is when he really is.
Speaker I mean, he’s always interested in breaking down barriers and stuff like that. Really? Yes. Doing it right.
Speaker Absolutely. That’s. I think he broke a barrier for himself because he it was sort of the end of this this time of of of doing film scoring. He wanted to be like a pop star because he makes the stars. But he wanted that pop genre. He wanted to infuse it with what he knew and he wanted that as a success. He was so determined and that was in the 70s. And it’s really when you think about it, there weren’t many people doing that at all. And he was determined to make that happen from so to take himself out of only a jazz musician, to take himself out of only a movie composer and to go the next step with that which he did.
Speaker Now, when woman says one thing that stuck in my head that Bravo just blew my mind was that financially when you met, you were sort of on on even terms.
Speaker When you tell me about everyone nowadays, thinks Quincy, this mogul, when in fact that wasn’t the case. When you start with when I met Quincy.
Speaker When I met Quincy, I’d been working. I had saved a little bit of money. And Quincy, really, he had a contract, I believe, with A&M, and he was supporting his other wives and had other children. He had three other children to support. And he really wasn’t financially he wasn’t financially that stable. And but, you know, we still lived a good life. I mean, Quincy is the master of the good life. We know that, you know, no matter what, he’s going to have the best food, you know, the best surroundings. And the same with me. I’m the same way. And that’s another way we connected. But when we went to buy a house there, you know, I had to I had to put the down payment. I had had the money saved. He really didn’t have the money at that point. Not that we were poor. We were never poor, but we just didn’t have enough to really splurge on a house. But we bought this house and he fell in love with this house. It had a waterfall. And he totally loves water and likes to be near water. And I think this is, you know, from growing up in Seattle, and he saw that water phone. He said, I really want this house. And so we made it happen.
Speaker Tell us about the moment where Quincy says no more film scores. Wasn’t there such a moment where, you know, just to set up this experimentation where you just decided, you know, I’ve done that?
Speaker I think he had done like 50 or some odd scores and not that he didn’t get it. He got incredible pleasure out of writing scores and he’s so, so good at it. I think as a film composer, you know, he had these great friends and great composers like Hangmen CENI and Johnny Mendo. I mean, these were his best friends and he brought a different edge into film scoring, you know, his from his jazz background. But he could certainly, in his heart of hearts, leave it to the masters like Hank and Johnny and wanting to do this other you know, this other music. But interesting and interestingly but interestingly enough, he went back and scored roots and that’s what made him so high. And that’s really what made him say, I don’t want to score because he was way too much emotionally involved in Bruce because of the subject matter and wanted to be involved and, you know, wanted the music and wanted to research the music and make sure that it was authentic. And it became a really a difficult, difficult time for him.
Speaker Tell us the story. Roots starting with. Years an, which is you could look back and say, oh, that makes perfect sense. But it was sort of a unusual idea.
Speaker Well, it was an unusual idea coming from a very unusual man named Alex Haley, who had written the autobiography of Malcolm X, which was an extraordinary book, was a friend of Quincy’s and said he was tracing his roots in Africa. And of course, this was kind of unheard of, you know, and a lot of African-Americans didn’t or couldn’t think of tracing their roots because there was nothing to trace it to. And Alex had this idea and he told us about it and he introduced us to his his researcher and he was just starting to research it. He hadn’t even written it yet, I don’t think. And he sort of ran out of money. So we ended up lending him money and he moved into our house for a while and cooked for us. And he was a wonderful cook. He had learned how to cook in the Navy. He was a brilliant cook. And he made this which we still to this day.
Speaker This is sauerkraut.
Speaker Oh, no, sorry. He made cabbage braised cabbage. And he’d make this pinkish fast like he was feeding the Navy like this and he’d bring them out. And he was so grateful. And Quincy was so supportive of him. And then his research spent he and Alex spent a lot of time with us. And every new discovery he made was, you know, like we were part of it. And so Quincy was very much involved in Alex’s process with roots. And, of course, it it it it struck him so deeply. It touched him so deeply. The subject matter that he felt he had to be involved. And he started doing his research. He did a tremendous amount of research. I mean, for many, many nights, many months, say he’d be in his studio. And I could hear, like African voices, African rhythms. He he met with Mary Mukaber. He worked with her and he had all the finest African musicians. But he really went into the research, too, because he wanted it just right. And Alex came over one day. Oh, Alex was there one me and the producer of the show sent us, you know, when they started. After after the book was written, we started getting after the book was written and became a huge success. And they wanted to do the TV show. And as a series is this was a six part series. And the producer, Hard Quincy to do the music is that’s who we wanted and that’s what Quincy wanted. And he sent over a packet one night, which were the blueprints of the slave ship, the specific ones, I think Alex had been had had ancestors on. And Quincy opened it up and we were all there and we spread it out on the table. And it was so devastating because they they they had drawn, you know, these bodies on top of each other layers and layers and layers. And they were and they were legitimate blueprints of the ship with the bodies on them. And at that point, I was really moved. And I and I, I sort of knew that this was gonna be something heavy. I knew it wasn’t going to be just an easy thing. I. And it did turn out to be that because he had to go so deep into his own unfulfilled wishes, into his own pain. And he wrote to me the most beautiful score. And he took a long time to write it. And the impatience of the producer and the network started to really cause him grief. And he got caught in between, you know, because he’s a man who has to work at his own pace and he has to have tremendous freedom, but not too much because no artist can have so much freedom that they get that they you know, they lose all discipline. And he would stay up for days and nights and days and nights in that studio writing the score. And then he wrote the score. It was beautiful. And then they didn’t want him or I don’t know if he decided or they didn’t want him to write the rest of it because he just took too long. Too exacting, too perfect. And so they took that theme, use the theme and then they had other people. And of course, if you watch it, it is so obvious that he didn’t have I don’t know who scored it. And this is not. This is not a put down the person who scored it, but it just didn’t have that eloquent, elegant touch that Quincy has. And that was a big deal for him. You know, losing either he resigned from it or.
Speaker There was some discussion, but he really felt that he lost that as a as a purpose and fulfilling the, you know, the purpose to Alex and the show and that hurt him. It really did. But still, it’s just, you know, it will live on forever.
Speaker I don’t think today’s generation has any clue how big it was at the time things were. I know they just couldn’t. They should run the same show this year. Make it into an event. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker The event will have a little bit, if you will. I mean, the thing about roots was it roots came after this sort of life altering moment.
Speaker Friend, today, if you were there by the grace of God, when he to sort of beat the odds, this thing that happened. Take us take us through that.
Speaker He had been pushing himself a lot. He had discovered this whole new group of musicians and they were forming this pop sort of core to work on these ideas that he had even more so than smack Morter Jack, where he had incredible rhythm section. I think he had the brothers Johnson at that time and and Greg Fill-in gains and he was getting all who’s gathering all this material. I had my first child then and she was about three months old and he was working himself like crazy. He was so determined like he was with roots. But this was some he this was something even more because he knew he could he he would be doing this on his own. He wasn’t working for someone. And I think that’s part of what that that that that desire just to stop scoring was at the beginning because he always had to work for someone else. And he really wanted to have two wanted to work for himself. And he wanted to create it himself and then applied himself and, you know, not just go there and lose it into the film. He wanted to have that shining thing that was his own that record, that it was his own to produce it, to write it, to conduct it. And he was working himself very hard.
Speaker And then one day, just like I was going to the beach and we were in bed in the morning, he was going to be working all day. I was going out to the beach with my wife, with the baby, and he just collapsed and he went unconscious.
Speaker And I thought he was joking. And because we were we were making love.
Speaker That’s how it happened. So. I and then I just remember, you know, saying it was just that moment where I just thought, oh, this is not a joke. This is something. It was horrifying. It was it was horrifying. I was like my heart went out of my body and I thought, this is probably the worst thing that I’ve ever experienced in my life. And it was not knowing how to revive him, where he was, you know, was it. I just didn’t know. I just really didn’t know. And I called nine one one right away and they came out. And by then he had sort of come to and it was like, you know, baby, what happened? What happened? He was he was little incoherent. But I kept talking into his ear, like to know who I am.
Speaker And he said, You’re my wife.
Speaker And once you said that, of course, that was my own security. And I kept asking him, did you know? Because I felt that the memory was going so. When one came and he he was a bit revived. And they said there’s nothing wrong with his heart at all. He’s got a strong heart. And we don’t know what happened. And he described it as. Like everything went black and he was like hit over the head with an I say an anvil because that’s what I think it was with a powerful explosion. And everything went back and thought of this racing where the where the energy is racing or or the he could describe it. I’m sure he describes in his book perfectly because he does remember and we called our doctor at the time who had a suspicion that it was an aneurysm because she could look at the eye grounds and she said, I have a feeling this is you know, she told me, not him, because he was visibly not himself yet, you know, and he wasn’t totally coherent and he was scared. I mean, he felt like he died. He really felt like he died. And we were watching him. And then the next day that I was in the bathroom or something and I went back and he was in the same state that he was. And that’s when I knew that it was an emergency. And we took him to the emergency hospital and he was gone. I mean, and I guess what the sensation is, I guess what the sensation is, is this this feeling of blood flooding the brain. That’s what he said it felt like. And in essence, that’s what it is with an act, with an aneurysm. It’s a it’s a vessel that opens and the blood and the blood spills over to the brain. And he he had that sensation. But when we took him to the hospital, he wasn’t very conscious. And we drove in my doctor’s car. I mean, there was no time even for an ambulance. And she had the brain surgeon meet us there. Dr. Marshall Grote, great man, virtually helped to save his life. And they took him in and he said, I’m going to do a spinal tap. And I was just like, how could one moment be so perfect? And the next moment, your whole life is falling apart. And he came out after a spinal tap. He said he had a 50/50 chance of living. And that’s something in my wildest dreams. You know, when you’re just married, you have your baby. The most important person on earth is in your life now. And it could all be taken away.
Speaker And so I had to come home and and look at myself in the mirror. And at 26 years old and say, I could lose everything tonight, tomorrow.
Speaker And I have a three month old baby and I had to face that.
Speaker But he had to face the worst part, which was, you know, he had two operations to fix that aneurysm. He had to go back in. He came out. Everything was a miracle. He was at a nine hour surgery and everything was a miracle. There wasn’t one thing wrong, except he had another one and they couldn’t do two at one time. So he had to come out and live those that month or two knowing he had to go back in. And I mean, his head was so swollen, he had the screws. His scalp was open to here. And, you know, it was just. Poor guy. But I mean, if you think about it, I would be interested to know what he feels about looking back on that time, because he must have known that God was going to save him because it was a total miracle end. His attitude, his enthusiasm, his optimism. Quincy is an optimist and has every right to be after going through what he went through. So we decided when he was in the hospital and I couldn’t sign any of the papers to say what would happen to his remains if he would die. I said, That’s it. I’m good. I want to marry you. I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t want to marry at all. And I said, we’re getting married. And so we got married in between the two operations and it was four. It wasn’t a legal thing, you know, for me, but it was like, I want to be his wife. God forbid something happens. I don’t want everything we’ve ever built together to go away. And especially, I want to be Mrs. Quincy Jones. And once I got married, I was fine. There was a little resistance up until then. So we got married in between the operations. And then he went back in and once again had a remarkable recovery and said that that was it. His whole life was going to change. It did. I’m sure it did. But the worst thing came back. Not like it was. Not like that. I’m desperate and I have to make it happen. Not that he was ever desperate, but that drive and Quincy Jones is something that he can be almost identified with because that drive is is is is a. Tremendous, tremendous drive and tremendous striving for his goals. And luckily, he has as much energy in that as as much energy as that contains. That’s what he has in his artistic ability, too. Otherwise, you could just be a maniac with all that drive and nothing to back it up. So we were grateful. We were grateful for a lot of things and people were just amazed at his recovery. And it didn’t hit me until years later. What I’ve been through. It really didn’t even just talking about it now. I can’t believe that I was such a young girl and going through all that. And then we had another baby, too, just to really secure ourselves. And I don’t feel I mean, I was very worried for years after that. Every time you don’t like or whether you couldn’t catch his breath or he snored funny. I went crazy because I thought he’s having it again. And I think that stay with me our whole marriage and always having to look at the scar, always being worried about the scar. But then I knew that he had been given a whole new lease on life. And we certainly know that now, you know.
Speaker So I just want to make sure we have tape to continue. We good? We’re good. Well.
Speaker You write beautifully. So lots of you have that drive doesn’t really amount to much because there’s other talents or something missing. But the talent may be God given the artistic stuff. What do you think the drive Quincy’s drive derives from? What instilled him with to work so hard?
Speaker I think if I know him as well as I think I know him and knew him in those days, it came from family. From that same hole in his heart. Not really having the mother, the nurturing mother, the nursing mother, you know, being sort of moved around, always having the desire for family.
Speaker And so at the time, he was 14 and he discovered that he had these talents. That was his way to escape whatever was making him unhappy in his family life. And he was a very popular kid in high school. I always loved that I could look at his yearbook and Navy on his trumpet and all the girls liked him and everything. And he was very, very good looking. But I think I think it came from the lack of family. And, you know, let’s be realistic. He was a black man born in the 30s. You know, the more he realized what an outsider he was in terms of society, you know, the more drive he had around that, too. And he but he never, ever, ever closed anybody out because of race or color. His band was totally mixed. But that’s why that the Roots thing was so was so strong. Because I think he did get in touch with that that deep sadness of a whole people that had to change everything and had to be abused in order to rise as a Phoenix. And that I think he I know he had that in him, you know. And I remember once he said to me, you know, because when we got married in the 70s, it was, you know, black and white was not very acceptable thing. And to put it mildly. And when he started to hurt over roots and, you know, some of the other things that were many times we’d go out and it would be like if you know, that they didn’t know who Quincy Jones was, they just saw a black man and a white woman.
Speaker We would get, you know, treated pretty badly.
Speaker And he was very sensitive to that. And why shouldn’t he be here? You know, he’d been on buses where he had seen lynchings, you know. And yet the kind of person that he is, he never excluded. He always included all kinds of people in his life and in his music. So. In answer to that question about his drive, I think that was part of it, you know, becoming a successful black man in a, quote, white man’s world, which certainly composing was for him. I think he was, you know, one of the only African-American composers in Hollywood that made him want to do it even more.
Speaker And this this this this lack of family, you know, this lack of family, I think really drove him the lack of that nurturing thing when he was a child that he did not have.
Speaker And to know he knew he was talented. I mean, I’d say by the time I was 14, he just knew and they were not, you know, off to to to the Berklee School of Music. He knew what he had, which is amazing. How do you know at that age that you’re that talented? You can just keep expanding and expanding and expanding. So he knew.
Speaker So he he married those two things together.
Speaker And he still I think he still has the drive. He’s much more relaxed now, is like. It doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen. But somewhere inside. Is he still driven?
Speaker Still ridiculously ridiculous.
Speaker Exactly.
Speaker For one thing. Was that answering your question? Great time together.
Speaker I would, you know, just briefly, because his mom was never really around for him, but then she sort of appear in life and made it even that much more difficult because it’s sort of like my mom now.
Speaker Well, no one is to pay tribute to Sarah Jones, Quincy’s mother, because she was an extraordinary being, absolutely extraordinary, brilliant, energetic, passionate, and had had a terrible life and had a mental imbalance. You know, I don’t know. You know, she was diagnosed later on with dementia praecox, a split personality, whatever. But she was mentally unstable. There was no question. And it’s brilliant. She was she couldn’t control that. And she but she was brilliant, was a brilliant writer. She was a musician. She raised in for a very short time. And then she was was sent away to an institution, a mental hospital, which Quincy remembers very vividly having to see her there. And so maybe he was four years old or whatever. He didn’t have a mother were, you know, where was his mother and in a mental home. And there were no good feelings around her because the father, she was such a force to be reckoned with. She was so powerful. And then, of course, not, you know, not being able to channel that pat power really that nobody wanted to talk to her. Nobody wanted to see her. And she became frightened. He told me he went to the institution and became so frightened when he saw her. And he he recently, you know, recollected something that happened that he would he would always attribute to someone else. And then just recently, he told me, you know, that incident that I saw that happened at the hospital, it was my mother doing that, not someone else. So look at all these years later, he was only able to face it now. One interesting thing that happened with his mother, you know, he she she was very much in our lives because once I was the new wife, it was like the letters every day, the phone calls every day.
Speaker And there was a lot of intimidation, you know, but she she basically like me. And one of the reasons why she liked me was because she’d seen the show, the Mod Squad and loved that image that I had portrayed. And then I understood life and society and, you know, the Society of Change and so on. And so she really liked me. And I got along with it, which was very, very hard to take it, get on the phone with her and she’d be fine. And then all of a sudden she’d switch into, like, murderous language. And but she didn’t really frighten me. But she’s so concerned, Quincy, he couldn’t be around her. And so he never really saw that much. But there’s this one story Quincy always said to me he hated Coke. And I hate the minute he saw something with coconut. He hated and a lot of people have a version for coconut. It’s not that unusual. But for someone who loves as much, loves food as much as he does, this thing about coconut was absurd.
Speaker And later on, years later, I found out, she told me in her own inimitable way about an incident. It was his fourth birthday. She’d come home from the institution to make a birthday party. For him, it was on a porch. This is something he didn’t remember, by the way. It was it was on a porch and she had a big coconut cake that she had baked for that day.
Speaker And she said to me, you know, she said all those kids were running in and out and they were driving me crazy. She was very unstable and very delicate. And she sat there. They were just I heard them. They wouldn’t behave and they wouldn’t, you know, they just kept opening the screen door and closing it, so she said I took the cake and threw it out over the porch. Of course, he was there. He was the four year old boy watching his birthday cake being thrown away by his mother. And so he didn’t know that. And I told him that story and it was like, well, you know, it was. And where it’s these things, you know, as these incidents in his life and all of our lives that, you know, we may not be aware of, but that were traumatic.
Speaker And she had a traumatic effect on his life in a lot of ways, not just because of the cake, of course, but because of where she ended up, how she ended up. And you’re right. She would come back into our lives either through, you know, wanted to see the grandchildren, which she had every right to. But there was there was she was volatile. She was very volatile. So you couldn’t just leave the children with her. And his brother Lloyd and his wife Gloria were were care takers. And they took tremendous care of her and watched that part. But every time she called, he wouldn’t talk to her. He couldn’t he couldn’t even be on the phone with her for a minute before she riled him. And she would start off like, you know, I got him now going to talk to me the minute, you know, within a minute he’d be, like, sweating and going out of his mind. He really she pushed his buttons in a way that we could never understand. Only he really understands. And when he got sick, I thought we talked about this. I said, we’ve got it. You know, we’ve got to tell her because God forbid something goes wrong. You know, I. I will be devastated, first of all, as a mother that she you know, she doesn’t know when she will take it out of me for the rest of my life. I knew that about her because of.
Speaker OK. Yeah. He was mean. It’s weird. It’s weird. Eighty five and ninety four.
Speaker Used to take the shortest haircut because he didn’t like the long hair. So it was when you’re saying in Quincy. When Quincy got sick, you were faced with a tough challenge? Well, we’ll come back. First, give me that idea. You said before, which is as much as she wasn’t you always. Yes.
Speaker As much as Quincy’s mother, Sarah was not in his life, was not really a part of his life. She was always there as a shadow, as a shadow of who he could become. I think that was a part of Quincy that worried that he could become like her. That’s you know, maybe he had that mental illness and the shadow of also that. I think in some way he he still would have wanted her to love him. And this is a woman who is incapable, truly incapable of loving him the way she was truly incapable of loving him, the way he needed to be loved. And that was clear from the beginning. And the older he got and older she got you know, he he started to see that. And then that’s a a resigning within yourself that you will never have that. So I do think that that his music became that became that mothering, nurturing. And if you think of his music and it’s got a wonderful I wouldn’t say feminine energy, but there’s there there is there is an all encompassing, nourishing thing even in his heart, esan in cold blood. And all those really hard edges scores. There’s still something romantic, beautiful, melancholy, all the things that he had feelings around not having a mother. So I think that’s all very tied in together. Yes, she did appear on strange occasions and he just would go into a full cold sweat around her and he would try, you know, there was a part of him that would try to talk to her and he just couldn’t handle it. And when he got sick, you know, it was a decision that we had to tell her at some point because she was going to find out. And it was all over the papers. How could she not find out? And I can’t remember how it went down, but I think she knew and she started to call and insist to see him. So I asked if he was strong enough to see her. And he said, well, it has to be done. And she came down and I let her. I mean, there’s a lot of everything around. Sarah was like, oh, my God, you know, let’s get prepared. We can handle it. She caused so much molecules to be flung around the universe. She just knew how to stir up stuff. She knew how to do it. She’d had that power over all of us. And so she came in to stay with us. And that thing, my oldest daughter was only six months old. So I let her partake in the washing and everything. And once again, I really felt she couldn’t do it by herself. I had to be there, not that she would intentionally harm. But there was that imbalance and we didn’t, you know. No. But also underneath, she was such a brilliant woman and so practical. And you could tell her anything. And plus, she was she was funny. So she came and she saw Quincy and it was like, oh, my baby were that’s the last thing he was he was never her baby. So everything she said, he kind of took with a grain of salt, you know, and he really armed and he really armed himself. He put on a big armor as so not to be affected. And things were going really well for about three or four days. And I knew how to keep her out of his room. I really went to work on it. And then we ended up really having some wonderful talks. And she told me very much about her time in the mental institution, about all the things that went wrong in her life. And then after about the fifth day, she started to lose it. She was really under behavior that that was the thing with Sarah. You could count on her for a certain amount of time and then something would click and would go wrong. And about the fifth day, she started to lose it and she started to take it out on everybody in the household. But it started to get to him where he you know, he was in a healing in a very, very substantial, substantially important healing time. And she was trying to destroy that time. And so I said, you have to leave. And I never thought I would have enough courage to say, you have to leave my house. She said, What do you mean? I said, You are leaving. I’m calling a cab and you’re getting in the cab. I mean, because I saw what she did to him and I couldn’t stand. And I and I, I just couldn’t take it. I sent her out of my house and I, I said I threw her out because that’s what it took you literally almost byerly had to extricate her to throw her out. And but I just knew she was going to kill him. And she called me and she said, I’m at the bus station and you know, she was fine. She got on the bus and she went home and she ranted and rave for years. But it was the best thing that could have happened, especially for him, you know, that she was not there where he was trying to heal. And I hope for him. I don’t. Know what his closure was with her? I don’t think it was much. Please, God, he’ll keep writing and writing and writing all based around that love that he never had. Because that’s part of what makes him who he is.
Speaker Yeah.
Speaker I’m staying with my mother.
Speaker Yeah.
Speaker Go father went back to Roots for reasons you described earlier.
Speaker Why would you go back to you’re doing all these other things? You think it was just because of his relationship with the director or money then or because it seems as though it was a pretty unhappy experience? Tell me about that.
Speaker I think with The Wiz, he probably did need money. I can’t remember exactly, but I think, you know, he did. And I think the studio might have offered to pay him quite a lot. You know, he loved. He loved that. I wouldn’t say he loved The Wiz, the score, The Wiz, because basically he really we worked a lot of the score. And I think Charlie Charlie, who is the Charlie Black Top, Charlie Small, you know, a lot of credit to him. I believe he’s passed away. But he really took all of that stuff and made it like a thousand percent better than it was. Look, he had done a musical. He had failed with his own musical. Why not? Why not go for another musical? He you know, Sidney Lumet was a friend of his a director who he had worked so well with in terms of scoring in the Here The Night and the Pawnbroker, brilliant films. Sidney loves Quincy. And there was an opportunity to I think he produced it or maybe wasn’t a producer, but there was an opportunity to fulfill the score. Now, the story, you know, we know. I mean, the actually the musical was a hit on Broadway. You know, it was a hit. It was the next challenge for Quincy. And of course, he put 110 percent in. And I mean, if you listen to the score, this actually is one of my favorite scores of everything he’s ever done. It is brilliant. And one day it will have its time again and he’ll come around and maybe the actually the film never lived up to the score. But if you look at the musical numbers and the dance numbers, they are amazing. And he was once again an innovator in that in that medium. But it was a very unhappy experience because Quincy is a very lavish thinker and lavish writer. Abundant. He thinks big. He writes big. Even when he writes small pieces, it’s always comes in that really big place. And no studio wants to deal with that. And he had said no more of the studios. And they started to run into problems with money and budget. And what came out was not a great movie, but I am so certain that that score will be looked at one day as being a great, great piece of work. I mean, the intricacies of this man, the way he composed and then it was because I was there, I lived it with him because we all moved our whole family moved to New York to do to be with him. We rented a house in the Hamptons and I took his two other children with me. And so there were four children. It was very difficult because he was away every night. I was living in a strange place, a strange house, strange vibes in the house, too. It was very hard and for me at that time because we were living on Long Island. I was living on Long Island who was working in the city. And I had come from Long Island. And all of a sudden I was very much alone with the kids. And I start to feel my own, my own little thing about being a child and growing up. And all of a sudden I became very, very vulnerable. It was it was a complex time and it was very hard to deal with. But I still feel that that movie is better movie as it was that score, if you could ever listen to it without watching the movie. Of course, it was Michael Jackson and that was the link to the next milestone. The next. Not even a my. It was a milestone, but it was like the next hurdle, the next great fortress to to approach, the next great mountain to climb. And he really wanted Michael for that. And as people have seen it. So he did an incredible job. Michael was the character. He he knew how to dance, how to sing. Quincy was amazed with Michael because you really did know him that well. But to be able to be that musical in the context of of a character such as Michael, you know, singing with his brothers, now he’s a character. And so he started the relationship with Michael.
Speaker They’re great. Let’s give you a drink. Am I getting too dry? No, no. Just a little something here.
Speaker And it’s generally moving into another story. Story.
Speaker I’m looking at the snake. I’m going, oh my God, if I was hallucinating, that would look so real to me right now.
Speaker I know we were looking for different looks in the snake in the pictures. Not a good idea. Now, too much connotation at this point.
Speaker And symbolism for a Yes.
Speaker Snakes. It sort of says too much.
Speaker OK.
Speaker I said, what did you know what. What did Quincy say to you about this opportunity that was developing to work with this pop singer? I mean, he worked with everybody, but clearly there was a challenge here or there was something that he wanted to do with Michael that, you know, now is historic. But at the time, you remember what you began to touch on. There were things that he did in the movie that appealed to him. But did he have any idea what they were going to go on to do? Or do you remember what what that time was about, what it was like? Oh, now I’m going to do this next thing. What’s it just sort of now merging with another artist or what did it feel?
Speaker No, it wasn’t. Now I’m going to work with another artist. It was like Michael Jackson is one of the most talented people I’ve ever seen in my life. He was certain with that. And this is from a man who’s worked with the most talented.
Speaker Sorry stuff in 60 years.
Speaker One of the switch tapes. I’m sorry.
Speaker That’s OK. Action. History. Everybody. Right, OK.
Speaker Two.
Speaker I think you ask me about Michael Jackson Browne, Michael Jackson to be incredibly talented. Let’s see. What did you want to do with Michael Jackson? Was it furthering that sort of pop pop? I mean, Michael Jackson was still at that point considered making black records, which is weird.
Speaker But you use making RB, you know, records with Motown, with his brothers. Quincy saw in him an incredible not even I mean, incredible. Yes. Because we all know Michael’s incredible. We heard we’ve heard that. But he he he saw that spark in Michael that would make him a star. That was the difference. He knew his talent. He he knew the talent. He’d worked with him on The Wiz, with the dancing, with the singing, with the lip singing, all these things that he had such a natural knack for. But I think he saw. I don’t know if he saw that I could make Michael a star. But he definitely saw that there was something in Michael that was needed in the world. You know, the Michael’s energy and that incredible talent, I keep using the word incredible. It’s it’s God given, God given talent. That’s what Quincy has. So he recognized it in somebody else. And I’m sure in the back of his mind, he he thought about how he was going to work with Michael, because I do remember him saying that I work with Michael. I don’t think no one. I don’t think anyone excuse me would have known how far it was gonna go. But Quincy Jones in many ways discovered Michael, not that Michael O already wasn’t a great pop star. And he was so adorable from the time he was young and he was discovered as a young person. But Quincy found that part of Michael, that maturity, that crooner, that pop, you know, that balladeer, the jazz part. The pop part. The rock part. He feet. How embarrassing. It’s my father.
Speaker So an orphan with no anvil in front of your eyes.
Speaker And I forgot to do that. Your called is going well.
Speaker Yes. So he was able to bring a different dimension. Please continue to tell you your son, but also want to do it with you over neighborhood.
Speaker Well, we were talking about The Wiz and how Michael really could take on the challenge as an actor, dancer, singer. He succeeded in that. And Quincy saw that he could do it, you know. And he must have had like this like go on inside of him to say, I can do other things with this boy hyphen man. And they got along. They understood each other.
Speaker And Michael is so musical that there were very few who could match young people who could match Quincy on that level of being that musical. So I think Quincy saw in him that he and we. And we can listen to the albums and realize there was a balladeer in there. There was a a crooner in there. There was a great writer because he wrote some of this stuff to the pop singer, the rock singer. There was Michael was just like a treasure waiting to be discovered on that level, even though he had had a career as a young boy and was so great on stage. And all his records were wonderful, too. But Quincy saw the musical side of Michael. And I do think that they had a relationship based on, you know you know, Michael, we now know I had no relationship with his father. And Quincy had a son who he absolutely adored, but who was going back and forth between his mother and us and really wasn’t there to to care for Quincy to lavish all his love and affection onto. He always was, you know, was fighting with that guilt about not having his son with him. And so I think there was that, you know, father son thing. I think that was the natural thing to happen between them. And and naturally, that’s going to involve a lot of emotions which all those albums picked up on. And there was quarreling. There was bickering. There was love. He always had to go head on with Michael because Michael’s has very strong opinions. And to be that talented, you know, Quincy always listened because Michael was the artist. He was the one making all the sounds that Quincy had written or whatever, that that is the you know, the fountain spewing is is the one who makes the sounds. And that’s what he has to connect to. And so a lot of times. But we were in the studio a lot then because it was a very exciting time. And even Quincy change Michael’s voice from like a little hi little peewee voice to a lot deeper. And I think Michael matured in general, but there would be times where he would get goose bumps, you know, that Michael would, you know, would be singing and come from his soul. And I remember Quincy would say to him, something to the effect like come from your soul, you know, that real that God place. Because, Michael, a lot of the times wanted to play it safe because he was so talented and so musical that he could play it safe. And Quincy wanted him to go deeper. And I think that’s what came out in the albums.
Speaker I really do well within the studio when you were there. Wasn’t there a sense of digging for that?
Speaker Well, there were nicknames and there was a sense of kind of how within the relaxed atmosphere that here.
Speaker So just getting places you’re seeing here in the studio. That’s the kind of place that we are the world.
Speaker No one ever was except for very few people. How would you know Quincy sort of talking? He doesn’t really embrace it now the way it needs to be embraced in some sense, the stories. How did Quincy pull that stuff out? You’re funny nickname for me. That’s public record. But tell us about just their working relationship in the studio back and forth.
Speaker His nickname is Smelly. Tell the whole world is dick there is smelly. I can’t tell you why it’s smelly, but it is.
Speaker He had to nurture Michael and a lot of ways he had to kind of mold him because Michael had definitely been affected in many ways by his performing as a young child. You know what was pleasing for an audience? What he was willing to look, you know, live with a family, you know, of having to sing with a family. And that was Michael by himself. And I do remember Quincy always wanted him to sing, like I was saying before, from his heart, from his gut, that there was something in there that he needed to release. And that’s what Quincy wanted to hear. As a stylist, you know, he’s brilliant. But actually, Quincy helped him with his with everything. But the styling to all the overdubs were Michael. You know, all those different voices, even Michael, the different voices. You know, he did the thriller voice. He expanded his repertoire, to put it mildly. And their relationship was very close because it had to be because for Michael to open up like that, it had to be very close. Michael was extremely shy, as we know, very shy person, and really had never trusted anyone. I don’t think outside of, you know, maybe his brothers in his family. And it was a big step, I’m sure, for Michael to trust Quincy. And yet he had the perfect person to trust because Quincy was totally there. I don’t want to say it’s like a puppet and a puppeteer because it wasn’t. You know, Michael was a puppet, but there was some sort of relationship as like the father figure and the son and the protege. The the.
Speaker That felt that’s what it felt like a bit like that.
Speaker You know, as these albums started setting records that way.
Speaker It was amazing, I think Quincy knew. But you could never know on that level. Never once we actually went out to lunch. The two of us. It was a rare event because we had lunch at home. I said, you know, we I cooked a lot at home because he always had a lot of meetings. The studio was at home, so we always made lunches at home. And one day I got him to take me out, which was a big deal. Just the two of us. I was so happy. That was the day that they were going to announce the Grammy nominations and we were sitting having lunch.
Speaker I said, I’m going to go call whoever it was I was going to call thing it was at X time and find out, you know, because we were close ourselves off. We want to hear the radio. We do want to watch the news. And I came back and I and I remember you seeing there by himself, which is a rare thing. Quincy Jones is there by himself too often. And I told him that it was I don’t know how many nominations you’ll have to you’ll have to find out. But it was a lot. And he was in awe. He was an O. He didn’t take it like I knew it. I knew that was going to happen. It was like, oh, my. This is kind of what I’ve been waiting for. I felt that with him and it felt like a gift to us both because he had worked so hard. Now I want Michael but everything to have that recognition. He had won many Grammys, but that pop thing is really what he wanted. He really wanted it. And he got it. And musically, I mean, these albums, you know, will always, always be great albums. And it’s interesting you say he doesn’t talk about it much. I think it’s probably a part of his life that he doesn’t need to think about. He’s got it on forever as as as the record. Why does he have to go back there?
Speaker I do believe it was not so easy to have that relationship with Michael and to have known you made it three albums. Yeah. Three incredible albums together. And then a relationship fall apart. So it’s not that easy for him to look back, I think, and talk about it.
Speaker What came right. I mean, those things take on this world in terms of your perspective on what was going on, what Quincy was worried about, where the world was a result of Quincy.
Speaker I think really wanting to give back. He had received all the Grammys. He had certainly made a lot of money as a producer. A tremendous amount of recognition. And he wanted to give back. And the opportunity came with the song with the World, which I’m not sure if Quincy wrote it. Bono as Lionel and Lionel wrote it. Right. And it was his way of giving back to for what he had received. And plus, he is a man who has such a global perception of the world and always had always he was always like that. He could see things like in the future, like computers. He was never man who shot himself after like the future, even though, you know, we talked about how he’s in the moment. He really, really concerned himself with the future. And thank God he has, because he’s open the doors for a lot of people because he has. And he he started to pull together all his talent for this session. The more people he got, the more excited it was. Of course, I’m thinking too many people, too many personalities. It’s not going to work. But you know who he was. He was genius with that, you know, with being able to take people, get the best out of them, mix and match them, you know, make sure that they all gelled together. And there is actually a tape of him, I guess is a tape of him in the studio doing that. And you you see it and so relaxed. But inside, he must be going crazy to see if this was all going to work.
Speaker But it did.
Speaker And people who sang on that session still talk about it. What was that feeling in there? There was an incredible feeling like like we like everybody admired each other. We were all together to make some some change in it. And it really was the first of that or, you know, was after Bob after Bob Geldof. But it really was one of the first ways that that entertainers could show how much they care and give of themselves. And it was extraordinary, extraordinary time.
Speaker Extraordinary session reminded me that disregarding my notes, I want to go back to what it’s like to sing on stage or be on stage part of a musical with Quincy, because many times I had that experience of being on stage with him.
Speaker The best. I mean, I went on. I went on tour with him because I didn’t. I missed him and I didn’t want him to go wait already gone away once. I didn’t want wanted to go away, but I didn’t want to leave my children. I was very, very torn. So I made it a two week thing to go to Japan with him. And I and I knew I didn’t want to sit around backstage or in front because I just didn’t want to. Well, you know, it’s all consuming. You know, that kind of a trip is all consuming. And I would never be with them unless I could go on stage. So he said it was okay to sing and we rehearsed. I had Rod Temperton, you know, wrote my harmonies for me. And it was a way also of because I love Rod’s music so much and Michael’s albums, it was a way of, you know, getting into what Rod, you know, writes his musical genius to understand his harmonies, to be able to sing his harmonies. I felt very, very privileged. And then also to be on that, it wasn’t the first time I’d been onstage with Quincy. I’d done it before. And in fact, I was with him a lot when he was still working with Big Band, because you’re in the middle of that and you hear everything that he’s written, every every trumpet line, every, you know, bass line, that it’s like being in the most beautiful ocean in the world and being able to see dolphins and star fish and then also feeling, you know, that feeling of ecstasy. That’s what it it felt like to me. And also to be onstage and look at this audience, you know, and I’m just, you know, singing background. And Quincy is working his hands up onstage. He’s like sweating and conducting and jumping at everything. It was pretty fun. It really, really was fun. And we did a good job. We did a really good job. And that was special for me. I couldn’t have asked for, like a better reward for hanging in there on so many record dates in the studio. Because enough of those, you know, it was like it was great. It was wonderful. But to actually be on stage was very special. And I became, you know, I could feel what it was like to be in the band. And that’s what he called me. Call me the singer in the band.
Speaker Do you have anything for you? Yes, of course.
Speaker Yes, of course. It was my lifelong nickname. And until we broke up and he went back to Peggy. But when he’s feeling especially sweet, he’ll call me by bear. That was my name is Bear.
Speaker No, he he this is the way his mind works.
Speaker That quirkiness that like let me find that part of her him that isn’t the obvious that everybody else doesn’t see. He goes in, he goes in for other areas. Because when he’s going to work with you or even if he’s just going to know you, he has to know you on his terms. And it’s not the way everybody sees you. That’s what makes him so fascinating. One of the things that makes it so fascinating. He’s got to know you, how he sees you. And it’s not about how anybody else sees you. And that’s why he gives you the nickname.
Speaker And believe me, those nickname stuck like glue to everybody. I mean, Alex really had a bad way to forget Alex. It was like a lot of them were just like, oh, gee, Quincy, you know, like embarrassing, like smelly would be embarrassing or I think Alex had a good one. You’ll have to ask him what Alex was right.
Speaker Worms. That’s because he came from worms, which was this was a city in. I don’t know. It was a city that he came from worms and they step step and he is worms. And he’ll if he had to call or go IQ, this is worms.
Speaker One was.
Speaker Harking back to roots in this story, but was also the most trouble in Europe.
Speaker As I speak to that experience with regard to his commitment to the work at hand. Clearly. But for various reasons.
Speaker Things were changing both hugely emotionally time.
Speaker It was an intense time. He. Between what happened with Michael. And The Color Purple. There was so much demand on him in every way. Hostess be that, you know, show up here, do that. And I began to find those things really wearing on us. It’s not like we could come home and say, gee, we had a great time. You know, it was I prefer to be with Quincy along with the kids. It was my whole life. That’s what I preferred. I didn’t care if we ever went out. And, you know, he needed to live the dream now, you know. And I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t do it. After a number of those, what he would call them, gripping and grinning fast for you. Crip somebodies hand new friends. How you do and everything. And that’s all. All all they were a lot of them were like that. And there were wonderful honors he got. But basically, I couldn’t do it and I didn’t want to do it. And then The Color Purple came about because of his admiration for Steven Spielberg. And we spent a lot of time with Steven and he just wanted to work with him no matter what. And another one of those. No matter what, I’m going to do it. And and and they loved each other’s talent. So he was asked to produce or wherever it came about. He ended up producing The Color Purple, which was a tremendous, tremendous challenge, even if you are with Steven Spielberg. You know, one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, which he knew he was. It’s still you still have a studio. You still have all that stuff. And that studio thing once again started to undermine, I feel, his work.
Speaker And he I don’t think he was happiest during that time. And part of it was because our relationship was starting to look sort of bleak.
Speaker My mother had passed away. I which was a tremendous loss for me. And I also got sick that year.
Speaker We had to move. We actually moved because we were building a new house. And, you know, actually building a new house is never good for a marriage. We’ve heard that before with the stress of that. And they were just it was just a difficult time. And then he went away to do that film. He he was a part of him that I felt wanted to be accepted. And this was the part that I didn’t like, because for me, in my mind, Quincy Jones was totally. He was not only accepted in my mind, but the greatest like. So beyond misdirects and Mrs. Desmonte beyond. But still, I felt with the Color Purple. There was a part of him that I still want to be accepted and that I didn’t like that. And that started to wear on me. And I don’t even know if he he knows that. But that’s what I perceived. It could be totally untrue. But that’s how I took it. And why does he have to prove himself at this point? You know why? Well, maybe he wasn’t proving himself. Maybe he was just go into the next, you know, location or whatever. But that’s how I perceived it. And a lot of it came from my insecurity, not having him around as much as I wanted to. You know, that movie took him away. You know, when I might have needed him, when I did meet him, you know. You know, when my mother died, my children were growing up. His children were living with us.
Speaker And.
Speaker He wrote a very sad theme in that he wrote some sad music and that because I, I do. He knew it wasn’t it wasn’t staying together. He knew it. And I wanted to be elsewhere. I didn’t want to be on the set of The Color Purple. I couldn’t wait to get out. We’re in the old days. I would have been there, you know, completely support if it didn’t feel like the old days anymore.
Speaker It felt like things had changed so much and they were out of control and not out of my control. But just what the sweetness that we had, that thing of, you know, when we bought the house. And when you struggle with the first you know, the first record or the first score, all of that was gone.
Speaker And he’s become a person that people just wanted a part of. And he began to give away. I saw pieces of himself. And by the time the Color Purple was over, there was nothing left. He wasn’t even part of this world.
Speaker He had to go away any. Finally, I guess he says he had a nervous breakdown. And I think he knew our marriage was over. I couldn’t reconcile anything because I had my own. I couldn’t even blame it on Quincy. I had so much to deal with. I had had two children. A mother had died. I realize I had never worked on myself. I’d always been the little girl who had the, you know, the greatest marriage and the man to protect her. And I had never lived life as a woman, really as a real empowered woman. I’d always been with Quincy. And that’s the way I wanted it. And I was still would never change it.
Speaker But I’d always been the woman behind Quincy or the woman with Quincy. And when I had to be on my own, that was what that was. My biggest challenge was not to have him as my protector and the person to look up to. And who was I? And I think that was one of the reasons why we broke up. What could he do at that point? He couldn’t become me. He couldn’t fix anything. He wanted to fix things, but there was nothing to fix. I wasn’t that whole person that I needed to be. You know, I had spent 14 years with him being a little girl and now I had to grow up.
Speaker So it was it was always a very sad breakup, was very it was over like that. And the reason why I was over like that, because I knew that if I stayed, I knew if we went to therapy that I wasn’t going to be able to. I felt strangled, that I wasn’t to be able to get out and do what I had to do because I would always, you know, I would always be there for Quincy. And it was a courageous move on my part, which I never thought of until years and years later. It was very hurtful to the family and very hurtful to Quincy.
Speaker For him, it came out of nowhere, but it had been growing in me forever, you know.
Speaker And I regret now only that I couldn’t have been more mature to have worked it out in a way where he didn’t do he wasn’t so devastated by it. You know, all of a sudden he looked around. He didn’t have a wife anymore, you know, and something told me in my heart that I was never going to stay married to anyone. Still, Quincy is the love of my life. I can’t you know, I certainly haven’t found anybody to match that, and I never will. And that’s an acceptance, too.
Speaker But I was spiritually in crisis. I would say, and I had to move like I did. And I didn’t have a mother to comfort me and tell me what to do. He had been my everything. Even my mother, my father, my whole family. So that was the way I needed to it. And that was to cut it off.
Speaker Do you think, Quincy, your tape, I’m sorry about that.
Speaker Yes. No, I think I don’t. I really don’t want to go. OK.
Speaker So you cleared the frame, right? Just in case. Great. So you’ve just said something that, you know, I think runs against most people’s perceptions of Quincy, which is that, you know.
Speaker Some people use the word dog. Some people say you’re a ladies man, whatever.
Speaker But that in his heart, you know something about what he wants and what he thinks of himself as it runs against that language.
Speaker Well, I think just to start off with, I I think I could justifiably say that if I had stayed in the marriage, we would have stayed married. He wanted to stay married to me. There was no question he he would say to me, you know, let’s grow together. We’ll grow old together. He wasn’t looking for someone else. And I think the relationships that he’s had since and also before, because he you know, he had a lot of relationships before. He’s a very attractive man. And he and women are very attractive, attracted to him. But he’s not looking just to be with any woman. He never has been. He once again was looking for that family. And the other part of it is, is that he does need a woman. He’s a man who needs a woman. He needs that energy around him. He there’s a part of me that needs to be taken care of. You know, his heart taking care of not just the everyday things, because he is an artist who doesn’t do well with Hohhot of, you know, minutia. So he does need someone to sort of take care of that area for him. But more than that, he needs his heart to be taken care of. He needs to be loved from deep within. He needs to love from deep within his heart. That’s I would say more than anything, is equal. Certainly equal, if not more so than his music. More and more. It’s almost more viable. It’s the most alive thing about him is the way he feels in his heart. And and I do believe he needs relationship and needs to be in a relationship here. But, you know, he also likes women. Why shouldn’t he? You know, it’s funny when the wives get together and the children and we do do that, you know, we make a Thanksgiving. He’s been very open about that. I luckily never had a problem with any. I mean, I had a problem, I must say, when when we first met and there was the ex-wife because there was no closure there. And I was not a very I was not very good about it. I was twenty five years old and I didn’t I didn’t know what to expect, what to think, stepchildren, you know. But I must say, age mellows you and I. I embrace everybody who is he has had love for and certainly that he has children with. And we have a Thanksgiving when we’re all together and he just sits there like the Porsche and he’s like, I don’t think he’s totally relaxed. I think he’s like going, oh yeah. That was then. And that was then. And oh yeah, I had that. But there’s I think it makes him feel good inside that we can all be together and know that we loved. We all love the same man, you know. And I hope whatever relationship he has is, is fulfilling. As mine, you know, I don’t feel selfish about that, although, like I said before, it would be very hard for both of us to ever have that kind. I mean, that’s a once in a lifetime thing and that’s the way it is. And you accept that.
Speaker And just briefly, having kids as viable as important music is the need to love someone feels as though now correct me or give me your take on it. His ability to connect with his children, his love with his children has changed from what it had been, you know, relative to career and speak to that while he had children with quite a number of women.
Speaker And he always loved his children. Every child with special time. Every single one. He never put one above the other. He was he’s brilliant about that because as a father who wasn’t around 100 percent of the time, it could have been a different way. You can even liken that to how he would produce an album with a lot of artists or how he you know, how he could take, you know, a group like who sang on, you know, where the world with all these, quote, egos, you know, he had the son, you know, leave your egos at the door when you enter the studio. So he’s a very fair man and he can really give his love. He’s so filled with love that he can really, you know, give his love evenly and freely. It’s not you know, it’s he’s so full of love that he’s not thinking I need to love this one more or that one more. But I think he’s stuck. He started to realize that he did he didn’t spend the time with his children that he could have because he, you know, was out to do all the things we’ve talked about in this interview to make himself whole. Coming from a place where he wasn’t home and now he can look at his children because, you know, most of them are adults. They all adore him and say, hey, I’ve been part of the creation of these incredible individuals. He sees every child as an individual.
Speaker And it’s not my right. That’s me. What happened?
Speaker Well, you forgot to turn it off. Yeah. So his children, he sees everyone as an individual.
Speaker His children adore him. And he sees each one of them as an individual. And he’s delighted with that. No one is a teacher. One is an actress. One is a musician. One is a mother. One is a activist. And they’re part of what he created in his many lives. Let’s say he’s had many life, like you said, man of nine lives. And he’s come to a point where I think you can just exhale and go, yes, I’m I’m happy and I’m proud as a father. And I and I have these great people around me. And so that his energy towards that, his acceptance of that and, you know, he and he has stated that he’s regretted and that’s sort of his way of apologizing to his children for not having been there. And, you know, one day, if you’re ever around the whole family, you’ll see the love there is palpable. You can taste it. And it’s a unique, you know, family situation. But I’ll be darned if every single child and grandchild doesn’t look like Quincy Jones, every single one.
Speaker First of all, he has the most gorgeous children. I mean, when I have my children, I thought, if my children are gorgeous, that means there’s something wrong with me because he’s had gorgeous children and he went on to have more gorgeous than everyone has a piece of him and that his gene is so strong.
Speaker And I really mean, that’s the most flattering way that, you know, each one of those child has a has a little piece of Quincy Jones in them. And what a great thing to have.
Speaker Thank you.
Speaker I would quibble. What we need to do. 20 seconds of room tone. Just for a second. 20 seconds. Tom.
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