Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones (1990) User Reviews

Tries to move too quickly through too many stars

[bob the moo · 17 December 2001]

A documentary following Quincy Jones's rise from the rough streets of Chicago to being a famous producer and composer. When I saw this coming on TV I assumed that it was going to be a TV movie with actors etc dramatising key elements of Jones's life. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a documentary.

This is built around a series of comments from family members, musicians etc intercut with old footage of the times. Contributions range from family members, Ice-T, Spielberg, Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, Sidney Lumet, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Big Daddy Kane, Oprah Winfrey to Jessie Jackson. The number of people is huge and it could have benefited from having their names regularly appear on screen when they talk, just to keep track of them. However the bones of the documentary are from the family members - all the musicians etc have to do is sing (literally) his praises. The family reveal the less successful side of his life, his childhood, his family life etc.

This does try to be honest and put all comments up on screen, however you do feel that it errs on the side of spin at times and that some issues could have been given more time (do his children feel the same about him as he feels about his parents?) and less on his greatness.

The documentary is well put together in terms of mixing film with interviews and dealing with a huge number of comments. However the package had two problems for me. Firstly it could have had more quality than quantity - some stars are given too much time with nothing really revealing to say, the family were well used but surely more of his colleagues had good stories and anecdotes to tell? Secondly the pace is often all wrong. Scenes are edited like pop videos, comments are run on top of each other, nobody is really given a significant time to say more than a few sentences or a paragraph - even when they have something to say. If you compare it to When We Were Kings, WWWK only had a few people making comments (only two for the most part). Also WWWK allowed the interviewees time on screen for their memories, their stories and their opinions - this made it all the more fascinating, you felt you're were being let in on something. Here the majority of stars only have the same good things to say - it all gets boring after a while. Thankfully the family keep the thing alive, even Jones himself is a lot more vulnerable and honest than I thought he would let himself be.

Overall a very interesting documentary about a man who rose from impossible circumstances in the face of adversity to make it big.

A disaster

[_Dan · 1/10 · 26 January 2001]

This attempt to make an artsy documentary about Quincy Jones is totally missed. We don't understand anything the people interviewed are saying. Everything is mixed in an incompréhensible mish-mash. It's a crying shame with all these great artists interviewed who could have had a lot of things to say about The Man Quincy. Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, etc..

The poor director of this thing have apparently never worked in this town after. No surprise with all the important names who were involved in this disaster! 0/10

Absolutely Outstanding! A Fine Showing of the Life of a Great Man

[edhuds0n · 9/10 · 9 February 2003]

Both informative and entertaining, this is an extremely intimate portrait of the man who knew no boundaries. It showed his European tours, both as a 19-year-old jazz musician AND later as a band leader who went broke (midtour!) and had to sell everything to get home. I was amazed at his countless works with legendary artists and composers. As the title states, it's hard to imagine all those experiences fitting into JUST ONE lifetime.

I was unaware of how much of a pioneer he was for many African Americans. Not only do the "old jazz tour" pictures and interviews with Dizzy, Miles, et al show this, but also his accomplishments -- 1st black VP of A&R for a major record label, produced "It's My Party (and I Cry if I Want To)", furthered the civil rights movement through music, 1st black to write movie scores -- are discussed as well.

It is all told in a very entertaining way -- narration, studio recording footage, and chats with Q, his siblings, his kids, and the myriad of artists he has impacted (Streisand, Sinatra, Spielberg, Ice-T, Flavor Flav, Oprah, you get the idea). Who else has worked with such a wide range of people? What I especially liked was the way many different interviews were spliced together in a point-counterpoint style, so that you could hear all of their views about the same subject.

I came away with a new respect for him, especially considering all of the financial, social, and even medical hardships he has had to overcome. However, anyone who does not already have a profound interest in music or someone who never faced hard challenges in life may not be able to relate to this story very well.

I would rate it 8 out of 10 - no question.

Incisive portrait documentary

[lor_ · 28 May 2023]

My review was written in August 1990 after watching the film at a Midtown Manhattan screening room.

Warner Brothers continues its recent preeminence among the majors in the music documentary field with "Listen Up" (subtitled "The Lives of Quincy Jones"), an informative and invigorating portrait of an unusual American success story.

Pic going the film fest route before opening domestically in the fall. Like "Imagine" and "Straight No Chaser", its primary audience will be found in ancillary markets.

Filmmakers Courtney Sale Ross and Ellen Weissbrod adapt a kaleidoscopic editing approach that is disconcerting at first but (aided by the exciting underscore) eventually makes sense. It dovetails with their subject and prime interviewee Jones' statement late in the film that a biographical question raises a host of associations, "like 17 tributaries of a river".

Basic facts about Jones' singular life are imparted: his traumatic childhood; the big break of joining Lionel Hampton's touring big band while still a teen; his being hired at Mercury Records and producing his first pop hits for Lesley Gore there. He arranged music for Count Basie and Frank Sinatra; scored over 30 motion pictures; co-produced Michael Jackson's breakthrough albums, including "Thriller"; and supervised such ambitious projects as "We Are the World".

Through dozens of interviews and archive footage, a complex individual emerges. As is common with portrait films, there's little critical material, but Jones' flaw of being a workaholic is illuminated by perceptive comments from his daughter, jolie. His three marriages, last to actress Peggy Lipton, ended in divorce. And his nearly nonstop career fixation was sidelined only momentarily by an aneurysm.

Celebrity interviewees ranging from Steven Spielberg and Frank Sinatra to rappers like Ice-T and Big Daddy Kane offer convincing testimony to Jones' creative contributions and ability to inspire performers. Putting his career in context are no-nonsense comments from Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as mentors Lionel Hampton and Billy Eckstine, whose collective oral history complements that of WB's "Straight No Chaser" docu on Thelonious Monk.

Though many subjects, particularly Ella Fitzgerald, are reticent, film accurately zeroes in on the racism that confronts black artists in America. Most telling are anecdotes by Gillespie, Jones himself and Kane that counterpoint the traditional horror stories of decades past with very recent discriminatory incidents.

On a lighter note, the filmmakers' frenetic editing technique cutely matches and contrasts comments on Jones' trumpet playing ability from folks like Eckstine and Davis.

His contributions o fil ae attested to by interviews with Oprah Winfrey (hired by Jones for "The Color Purple"), as well as Sidney Lumet and Richard Brooks, who cite the fresh approach of Jones' scores for their films, such as "The Pawnbroker" and "In Cold Blood" (demonstrated by film clips and sound excerpts). Musical high points of the film include performances by greats like Fitzgerald, the late Sarah Vaughan and youngsters Sideah Garrett and Tevin Campbell in the studio for Jones' "Back on the Block".

Though there are extensive identifying end credits, the filmmakers take the novel approach of avoiding superimposed titles by having each interviewee announce his own name. This leads to amusing results, especially for Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra. Michael Jackson is interviewed, but refuses to be photographed.

Tech credits are good, with okay transfer to film of videotaped material by Image Transform lab.