The Daily Zeitgeist - The Quincy Jones Interview as read by Miles Gray 2.19.18

Episode Date: February 19, 2018

The Quincy Jones Interview as read by Miles Gray. Featuring Anna Hossnieh as the 'interviewer.' Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone

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and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to i heart true crime plus only on apple podcasts all right guys welcome to the daily zeitgeist for today it is monday february 19th it is president's day and we want to give you all guys a special episode of i guess a dramatic reading of the iconic quincy jones vulture interview along with a couple added segments from a great interview he also did with gq magazine the week prior to that that was also kind of slept on so we'll get some stuff that you've heard some stuff that you haven't heard but let's not waste any time let's get into it i am miles gray

i will be reading the part of quincy Jones, and I am joined by... Hi, this is Anna Hosni, and I will be reading the part of The Interviewer. That is amazing. And just full disclosure, Anna is a professionally trained actor, so I'm a little bit intimidated because her acting chops are much better. But without further ado, this is Quincy. So you worked with Michael Jackson more than anyone. He wasn't related to. What's something people don't understand about him?

Okay, well, I hate to get into this publicly, but Michael stole a lot of stuff. I mean, he stole a lot of songs like State of Independence, Billie Jean. And those don't lie, man. He was as Machiavellian as they come. How so? Greedy, man. Greedy. Don't stop till you get enough. Greg phil and ganas man he wrote the

c-section and that's not a procedure the c-section of the song and michael should have given him 10 of the song he wouldn't do it what about outside the music what's misunderstood about michael i used to kill him about the plastic surgery man and he'd always justify it and say it was because of some disease he had bullshit how much were his problems wrapped up with fame? You mean the way he looked? I mean, he had a problem with his looks because his father told him he was ugly and abused him. What do you expect? It's such a strange juxtaposition.

How Michael's music was so joyous, but his life just seemed sadder and more odd as time goes by. Yes, but at the end of Michael's problem, it was propofol. And that problem affects everyone. It doesn't matter if you're famous. Big Pharma making Oxycontin and all that shit is a serious thing. I was around the White House for eight years with the Clintons. And I learned about how much influence Big Pharma has. It's no joke.

What's your sign, man? Icy. Me too. It's a great sign. You just mentioned the Clintons, who are friends of yours. Why is there still such a visceral dislike of them? What are other people not seeing in Hillary, for example, that you see? Well, it's because there's a side of her.

When you keep secrets, they backfire. Like what secrets? Man, this is something I shouldn't be talking about. You sure seem to know a lot. I know too much, man. What's something you wish you didn't know? Who killed Kennedy? Who did it? John Connor. The connection was there between sinatra and the

mafia and kennedy i mean joe kennedy he was a bad man he came to frank to have him talk to john connor about getting votes i've heard this theory before that the mob helped win illinois for kennedy in 1960 look we shouldn't talk about this publicly where are you from toronto i was at the massey hall show really the charlie park Charlie Parker concert with Mingus and those guys? Yeah, man. I saw the contract after. The whole band made $1,100. I'll never forget that. At the time, it was just another gig. It wasn't historical. Like with Woodstock, Tito Puente told me he wanted to go out to that gig.

Those festivals ain't my thing. See, Elon Musk keeps trying to get me to go to Burning Man. No thank you. But who knew that Woodstock would turn out to what it would be? You know, Jimi Hendrix was out there fucking up the national anthem. Wasn't Hendrix supposed to play on the Gula Matari? Well, he was supposed to play on my album, and he chickened out. He was nervous to play with Two Steelmans and Herbie Hancock, Hubert Lewis, Roland Kirk.

Those are some scary motherfuckers. Okay, Two was one of the greatest soloists that ever fucking lived. And the cats on my records were the baddest cats in the world and hendrix he and he didn't want to play with them what did you think when you first heard rock music and rock ain't nothing but a white version of rhythm and blues motherfucker you know i met paul mccartney when he was 21 what were your first impressions of the beatles that they were the worst musicians in the world they were no playing motherfuckers paul was the worst bass player i ever heard and ringo don't even talk about it i remember once we were in the studio with george martin and ringo had taken three hours for a four bar thing he was trying to fix on a song and he couldn't get it we

said mate why don't you go get some lager and lime some shepherd's pie and take a hour and a half and relax a little bit so he did and we called ronnie varela a jazz drummer okay ronnie came in for 15 minutes and tore it up and ringo comes back and says george can you play back to me one more time so george did and ringo says that didn't sound too bad and i said yeah motherfucker because it ain't you great guy though were there any rock musicians you thought were good i used to like clapton's band what were they called? Cream. Yeah, they could play.

But you know who sings and plays just like Hendrix? Paul Allen. Stop it. The Microsoft guy? Yeah, man. I went on a trip on his yacht, and he had David Crosby, Joe Walsh, Sean Lennon, all those crazy motherfuckers.

Then on the last two days, Stevie Wonder came out with his band and made Paul come up and play with him. He is good, man. You hang out in these elite social circles and doing good has always been important to you but are you seeing as much concern for the poor as you'd like from the ultra rich no the rich aren't doing enough they don't fucking care i came from the street and i care about these kids who don't have enough because i feel i'm one of them see these other people they don't know what it feels like to be poor so uh they they don't care. You ever had sashimi?

Are we in a better place as a country than we were when you started doing humanitarian work 50 years ago? No, you see, we're the worst we've ever been. But that's why we're seeing people try and fix it. Feminism? Women are saying they're not gonna take it anymore. Racism? People are fighting it. God is pushing the bad

in our face to make people fight back. We've obviously been learning more lately about how corrosive the entertainment industry can be for women. As someone who's worked in that business at the highest levels for so many years, do all the recent revelations come as a surprise? No, man. Women had to put up with that fucked up shit. Women and brothers, see, we're both dealing with the glass ceiling.

But what about the alleged behavior of a friend of yours like Bill Cosby? Is it hard to swear what he's been accused of with the person you know? See, it was all of them. Brett Ratner, Weinstein. Man, Weinstein, he's a jive motherfucker. Wouldn't return my five calls. He's a fucking bully. What about Cosby, though?

What about it? Were the allegations a surprise to you? Man, we can't talk about this in public, man. I'm sorry to jump around. Ha, man, be a Pisces, jam! Let me ask you about someone completely different. You really met Lenny Reifenstahl? I wouldn't make it up.

I've been a fan of hers since Triumph of the Will. I mean, that woman was one of the greatest filmmakers that ever lived. She knew I was a fan. And when I was over there in Berlin, Nastasha was doing a film with Vim Vendors vendors she came to the hotel one day and there was an invitation she wanted me to have lunch with her and that's the most incredible meeting i ever had in my life because i knew all about her she was gerbil's girlfriend okay he was like the publicist of the third right you know and she looked like heddy lamar when she was young she says she used

211 cameras i said why she says we were doing a recruitment film for hitler think i'm gonna tell hitler uh one more time adolf and then she told me something that really hit home she told me everybody in the third reich was on cocaine see i worked for pimps when i was 11 years old and they used to do that too they take cocaine because it raised the propensity for violence from the primate brain and that's the primate in us, the four Fs. Fright, fight, flight, and fuck. I never understood why sex and violence were so commercial. It's the primate brain, baby. The animal brain. It's heavy.

She saw Hitler using cocaine? Of course, man. She was Goebbels' girlfriend. So how does she think it affected Hitler? Well, shit, the history proves how it affected him. He killed every motherfucker he could see. You think a huge part of the horror of Nazism was just down to cocaine? I it had a lot to do with it when she said that it opened up a door for me because i've been around that shit my whole life some people would be judgmental about having lunch with someone who's so closely involved with the nazi party oh come on give me a fucking break man

please this is a human being man and a very special human being it was never political it was about her passion for her profession. I separate the art from the artist. Still, I wonder if she regretted being in all of that. No, because she never got involved. Okay, she never got passionate about what the Third Reich was doing. She wasn't into it. I could tell.

I mean, you have to read between the lines, too. You watch This Is Us? If you could snap your fingers and fix one problem in the country, what would it be? Racism. I've been watching it a long time. The 30s to now. We we've come a long way but we've got a long way to go the south has always been fucked up but you know where you stand the racism in the north is disguised you never know where you stand that's why what's happening now is good because people are saying they're racist who didn't used to say it now we know what stirred everything up is it all about trumpism man it's

trump and uneducated rednecks. And Trump is just telling them what they want to hear. I used to hang out with him. He's a crazy motherfucker. Limited mentally. A megalomaniac. Narcissistic. I can't stand him.

I used to date Ivanka, you know. Yes, sir. Twelve years ago, Tommy Hilfiger, who was working with my daughter, Kadada, said, Ivanka wants to have dinner with you. I said, no problem. She's a fine motherfucker. She had the most beautiful legs I ever saw in my life. Kadada said, Ivanka wants to have dinner with you. I said, no problem. She's a fine motherfucker. She had the most beautiful legs I ever saw in my life. Wrong father, though.

Would your friend Oprah be a good president? I don't think she should run. I mean, she doesn't have the chops for it. If you haven't been governor of a state or the CEO of a company or a military general, you don't know how to lead people. She is the CEO of a company. Okay, well, a symphony conductor knows more about how to lead than most business people. More than Trump does, he doesn't know shit.

I mean, someone who knows about real leadership wouldn't have as many people against him like he does. He's a fucking idiot. You good at Sudoku? Is Hollywood as bad with race as the rest of the country? I know that when you started scoring films, you'd hear producers say things like they didn't want a bluesy score, which was clearly code speak. Are you still encountering that kind of racism? It's still fucked up. Nineteen sixty four.

When I was in Vegas, there were places I wasn't supposed to go because I was black. But Frank Sinatra, he fixed that for me. It takes individual efforts like that to change things. It takes white people to say to other white people, do you really want to live as a racist? Is that really what you will believe but every place is different when i go to dublin bono makes me stay at his castle because ireland is so racist i mean bono is my brother man he named his son after me is youtube still making good music fuck no why not i don't know i love bono with all my heart but there's too much pressure on the band he's doing good work all over the world working with

him and bob geldof on debt relief was one of the greatest things I ever did. It's up there with We Are The World. There's a small anecdote in your memoir about how the rock musicians who've been asked to sing on We Are The World were griping about the song. Is there more to that story? It wasn't the rockers. It was Cyndi Lauper. Okay, she had a manager come over to me and say, the rockers don't like the song. I know how that shit works. We went to see Springsteen, Holland Oates, Billy Joel, and all those cats. They said, we love the song. So I said to Lopper, okay, you can just get your shit over with and leave.

And she was fucking up every take because her necklace or bracelet, whatever the fuck, was rattling in the microphone. It was just her that had the problem. What's something you've worked on that should have been bigger? What the fuck are you talking about? I never had that problem. See, they were all big. How about a musician who deserved more acclaim?

Come on, man. The Brothers Johnson, James Ingram, Tevin Campbell. Every one of them went straight through the roof. You started gigging professionally at 18. What was life on the road like? Look, the band bus with Lionel Hampton got 33 people on it. The front half of the right side, we call them the Holy Rollers. The weed smokers

behind them, that's us. The boozers here and the junkies there. And every time we go to Detroit, at the Majestic Hotel, standing in front with his Italian shit on and amber glasses, Malcolm X. Detroit Red. That's where we bought our dope. It was before he went to prison. You'd buy off him? Yeah, he was the dope dealer. That's how he went our dope. It was before he went to prison. You'd buy off him? Yeah, he was the dope dealer. That's

how he went to prison. So you would personally buy drugs off Malcolm X? Personally? Shit, everybody in the band bought it. The junkies used to call cocaine girl and heroin boy. That's because they said cocaine would take you from your woman. So why was heroin boy? Because it's masculine. You know, it's a strong drug.

And it won't bother you as long as you give it everything it wants. But it wants more and more all the time. Did you try everything over the years? I have tried everything. Amyl nitrate, methadrine, benzadrine, everything. I mean, Ray had me on heroin for five months. How old were you then?

Fifteen. Did it get bad for you? I mean, yeah, I started shooting. And then I fell down five flights of stairs and I said, that ain't gonna work. And it's the best thing that ever happened to me because when I was in New York, I was hanging out with Howard McGee and Earl Coleman and Charlie Parker and shit. I would have been a junkie for life. Was it easy to stop?

I fell down five flights of stairs, brother. I don't need any more inspiration than that. Shit. It's the last time I did it. Because I can stop like a motherfucker anything cigarettes alcohol i just stopped man obviously ray charles carried on for a long time oh please he went on 30 years with heroin and then the police told him he couldn't get his license to play clubs unless he stopped and he did and the 32 clubs gave him the licenses

back and then he started on black coffee and dutch gin for 25 years. When he was still using, would you talk to him about it? No, I wouldn't talk. I mean, talk about what? I've seen him shooting in his testicles, man, because heroin is a strange drug. Ray, all of his veins were dried up in black. And he's shooting himself in the testicles, man. Yeah, he had a guy do it. It was horrible.

Are you fucked with sacred geometry? From a strictly musical perspective, what have you done that you're most proud of man that anything i can feel i can notate musically i mean not many people can do that i can make a band play like a singer sings that's what arranging is and it's a great gift i wouldn't trade it for do you hear the spirit of jazz and pop today no okay because people gave it up to chase money. When you go after Ciroc Vodka and Fat Farm and all that shit, God walks out of the room.

And I have never in my life made music for money or fame. Not even Thriller. No way. God walks out the room when you thinking about money. And you can spend a million dollars

on a piano part and it won't make you a million dollars back. That's just not how it works. Is there innovation happening in modern pop? Hell no. It's just loops, and beats, and rhymes, and hooks.

What is there for me to learn from that? There ain't no fucking songs. The song is the power, you see. The singer is the fucking messenger. The greatest singer in the world cannot save a bad song. I learned that 50 years ago. And it's the single greatest lesson I have ever learned as a producer. If you don't have a great song, it doesn't matter what else you put

around it. What about your greatest musical innovation? That's everything I've done. Everything you've done was innovative? Everything was something to be proud of, absolutely. It's been an amazing contrast of genres since I was very young. I played all kinds of music. Bar Mitzvah music, Hava Nagila, you know

what I'm saying? Sousa marches. Have you heard the Royal Welsh Fusiliers? Okay. Strip club music. Jazz, pop, everything. I'd have to learn to do a thing to do Michael Jackson. What would account for the songs being less good than they used to be? It's the mentality of the people making the music.

See, producers now are ignoring all the musical principles of the previous generations. It's a joke. Now, that's not the way it works. You're supposed to use everything from the past. If you know where you come from, it's easier to get where you're going. You need to understand music to touch people and become the soundtrack to their lives. Can I tell you one of the greatest moments of my life? Of course.

It was the first time they celebrated Dr. King's birthday in Washington, D.C. And Stevie Wonder was in charge and asked me to be the musical director. After the performance, we went to a reception and three ladies came over the older lady had a sinatra at the sands i arranged that her daughter had my album the dude and then that lady's daughter had thriller three generations of women said those were their favorite records that touched me so much in my ego do you see a future for the music business there isn't a music business anymore if these people paid attention to sean fanning 20 years ago we wouldn't be in this mess but the music business is still too full of these old school b encounters you can't be like that you can't be one of these back in my day people

you're talking about business not music but i mean this respectfully don't some of your thoughts about music fall into the category of back in my day okay look musical principles exist man now musicians today, they can't go all the way with the music because they haven't done their homework with the left brain.

Music is emotion and science. You don't have to practice emotion because that comes naturally. Technique is different. If you can't get your finger between three and four and seven and eight

on a piano, you can't play. Or you can only get so far without technique. And people limit themselves musically, man. Do these musicians know tango? Macumba?

Yoruba music? Samba? Bossa Nova? Salsa? Cha-cha? Maybe not the cha-cha. Tell you something, man. Brando used to go cha-cha dancing with us.

And he could dance his ass off. And he was the most charming motherfucker you have ever met. And he'd fuck anything, anything. He'd fuck a mailbox. James Baldwin, Richard Pryor, Marvin Gaye. He slept with them? How do you know that? Come on, man.

He did not give a fuck. You like Brazilian music? Yeah, but I don't know how much we are for headband and Gilberto Gil. Look, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Velasco, they're the kings. You know, I visit the favelas every year and those motherfuckers have a hard life.

They're tough, though. You think our shit in America is bad? It's worse there. I read that as a young young man you used to carry around a 32 yeah did you ever fire yeah at what just practicing okay let me ask you a left field uh-huh in your memoir there's a section where you talk about being a dog how come you think you've been a dog all your life look i don't know probably because i didn't have a mother and the big bands that's like the school of the dogs traveling bands every fucking night it was like the girls coming through neiman marcus oh i like trumpet players i like sax players i like guitar players rita hayworth all of them it

was unbelievable man you know frank was always trying to hook me up with marilyn monroe but marilyn monroe oh man had the chest look like pears, man. So you turned down Marilyn Monroe? Let's not talk about it, man. Come on. We killed it, you know. I came up with the two wildest motherfuckers on the planet, Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra. Come on. They were good-looking guys. They had all the girls they wanted, and they showed you how to deal with it.

So did Ruby Rosa, the king of the Playboys. Amazing, man. What a guy. You know, 11-inch dong. And in Paris to this day, you go to uh chelami louis the waiter will come over to you with a pepper shaker and say here's your ruby rosa okay he always used to say quincy it's by the head not the bed women give up pussy to get love men give up love to get pussy and that's the way it works you know all these women were available all over the

world i did a tour with nat cohen 61 with my band we couldn't stop the girls it works. You know, all these women were available all over the world. I did a tour with Nat Cohen 61 with my band. We couldn't stop the girls. It's incredible. I mean, women are a trip, man. Do you ever wish you'd been a different way? Non, je ne regrette rien de tout. I don't regret shit. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶

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The The The The The The The The The The The journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption

that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite.

For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers. You mix homesteading with guns and church. Voila! You got straight away. He tried to save everybody. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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