Quincy Jones Was the Original Superproducer

The first couple minutes of Quincy—the 2018 documentary about Quincy Jones, co-directed by his daughter Rashida—are really a quite striking prologue. The shots are simple enough: There’s the obligatory survey of so many record plaques and iconic portraits posted on so many walls of Quincy’s mansion in Bel-Air. Here this documentary is beginning to tell the story of Quincy Jones as much as it’s telling the story of American entertainment—not just music, but the whole showbiz shebang—in the 20th century. This initial overview neatly culminates with a thoroughly star-struck Dr. Dre sitting in Quincy’s living room and telling him that his music, more than anything else, inspired him to become a record producer in the 1980s. Until Dre breaks the ice, though, the soundtrack—“Summer in the City”—plays uninterrupted over these opening shots. You know the groove—it’s reverberated for half a century at this point without ever fading out. For these first couple minutes, Quincy lets the music speak, oh so sweetly, for itself.