The Tate Lecture Series will present the Turner Construction/Wachovia Student Forum and The Omni Hotels Lecture, featuring legendary entertainment mogul Quincy Jones today.
Jones first discovered his love for music playing trumpet for his school band. He soon befriended a local singer-pianist named Ray Charles Robinson, and the two formed a combo playing at local clubs and weddings. He then won a scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but instead went on the road with Lionel Hampton. This gig soon allowed Jones to receive more work as a freelance composer where he worked with Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and others.
Jones then bounced around, performing in the Middle East and South America, studying composition in Paris and acting as a music director for a label in New York before focusing his attention on composing film scores. In 1964, Sidney Lumet invited Jones to compose the music for “Pawnbroker.” It would be the first of his 33 film scores.
Following the success of the “Pawnbroker” and later “The Slender Thread,” starring Sidney Poitier, Jones was in constant demand as a composer. Over the next five years, he composed scores for “Walk Don’t Run,” “In Cold Blood,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “A Dandy in Aspic,” “MacKenna’s Gold,” “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice,” “The Lost Man,” “Cactus Flower” and “The Getaway.”
Through his work as a composer, Jones and his writing partner Bob Russell became the first African Americans nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Original Song category. Jones became the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award twice in the same year for his work on the music of “In Cold Blood.”
From here Jones went on to accrue even more praise and acclaim. On top of composing film and television scores, he produced numerous Grammy award-winning albums, most notably Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” In 1985, he co-produced Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple.” It went on to win 11 Academy Awards. And in the 90s, Jones continued his success by producing the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”
To date, Jones is the all-time most nominated Grammy artist, with a total of 79 nominations and 27 awards. He has also received an Emmy Award, seven Oscar nominations, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
There are two chances to see the entertainer. The Turner Construction/Wachovia Student Forum will be at 4:30 p.m. in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center Ballroom. Admission is free and seating will be provided on a first come, first served basis. To guarantee seating, please arrive by 4:15 p.m.
During the evening lecture, Jones will be interviewed by the Dallas Observer Pop-Culture Editor Robert Wilonsky. To see the lecture, students should come to the basement of McFarlin Auditorium with their SMU IDs at 7 p.m. Backpacks are prohibited, and the dress is business casual. Because the evening lecture is sold out, there are no faculty or staff tickets available.
