Name: Quincy Jones on Letterman, December 11, 1985
Uploaded: 2016-06-28T21:55:07.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Quincy Jones on Letterman, December 11, 1985' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-06-28. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Quincy Jones on Letterman, December 11, 1985' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-06-28. Transcript available.

It's a magic night, isn't it, Paul?
Yes, magic, magic.
You can feel the spirit of the holidays in this room tonight, can't you?
Yes, you sure can.
Actually, we're knee-deep in the hoopla tonight.
That's right, we really are.
You enjoy hard-boiled eggs?
Yeah, I felt one right in the very critical area.
Oh, did I hit you with one? I'm sorry.
You got me in an interesting area, yeah.
There you go.
Now!
My God, he caught that bullet.
You must be Superman!
What are you going to do for the holidays?
Can I come over?
Probably Christmas in Vegas.
Oh, Christmas in Vegas, I forgot.
It's a tradition with you.
My next guest, ladies and gentlemen, is a fine musician.
He's also a terrific composer and an arranger,
and the most successful, this is unbelievable,
the most successful record producer of all time.
He is also the producer of a brand-new motion picture
opening December 18th, rather, called Color Purple,
The Color Purple.
And on top of all of that,
this man is the only guest we've ever had on this show
named Quincy.
Please say hello to Quincy Jones.
Thank you all.
Nice to meet you.
Thank you very much for coming with you.
Thank you.
How are you doing?
Okay.
You, uh, you're doing it all.
You do everything.
No, I think this, this, after this two-year stint,
uh, I'm going to rest for about two years.
It took, it took you two years to, to, to do the movie,
and then other things as well, right?
Is that what you're talking about?
Right.
Yeah.
But the movie was almost, uh, every day for two years.
Now, how do you, how do you go from being a, uh,
an arranger, a composer, and a, uh, record producer
to producing your own motion picture?
You're not in it, but I mean, you're producing the picture.
Well, it, uh, it just, it's something I'd always wanted to do inside, David.
And, uh, about two years ago, I guess October 83,
Peter Gouber, who was a producer out in California,
came to me to talk about an Olympic theme for gymnastics.
And we said, okay, but then I really got interested when he said,
I'd also like you to get involved in, in, uh, a book called The Color Purple,
which I had taken on vacation with me.
And, uh, I couldn't believe it,
because I fell in love with the book.
It was small, and I took it with me and read it.
Yeah.
And, uh, it touched me more than anything I've ever read in my life.
Uh, and it also helped me to understand,
from a woman writer's standpoint, what that was all about.
I mean, Alice is a very truthful writer.
Alice Walker?
Yes.
She's the one that wrote Color Purple.
Now, how do you, let me, uh, short-circuit you here,
but how do you go from that step to, to hiring Steven Spielberg
to direct the film and getting the cast and all of that sort of thing?
Well, you have to let everybody call you crazy at first,
because I said, Peter, can you let me just take this
and see what I can do with it?
And he said, fine.
And if I get in trouble, you can pull me back.
And, uh, he said, who are you thinking about directing?
I said, Steven Spielberg.
He said, yeah.
Yeah.
And everybody else did.
And, uh, at the same time, Steven had been thinking about the movie,
and, uh, we found, we were friends before, but, uh...
But he knew about the film, uh...
You know, he knew about the book.
Yeah.
And was...
Before you talked about it.
...circling, circling the field, about the same time.
And then, uh, I just stayed with it, and for, uh, 11 months later,
uh, uh, I found myself with Steven and Kathy Kennedy and Frank Marsh,
all pros, in, on a rocket, and through every stage of the film.
It turned out very nicely.
I saw it the other day.
It was, it turned out really nice.
You must be very proud of it.
But, you know, when you're working with Spielberg,
now, this is a story of a family and a group of people
working in the early 1900s in Georgia.
Right.
Did you have trouble with Spielberg wanting to put, like, you know,
uh, Martians in it and stuff?
No, no.
Some little guy coming down from Jupiter and being...
No, no way.
No way.
This, in the beginning, we talked about this,
and I said, Steven, this is all, no flying.
He knew.
No flying.
This is just some black people walking around on the ground, you know.
No, he's, he's, uh, he's, uh,
he's an incredible, one of the most incredible director.
Yeah, well, it's, like I said, it was a very impressive piece of work.
Now, uh, what, by the way, I mentioned your name is Quincy.
What's your middle name?
No, really.
Do you have a middle name?
Delight.
Quincy Delight.
Right, but it was my father's name, too, so it's not a,
stage name or anything.
I wouldn't do that.
Yeah, yeah, uh, so would, uh, what was your father's first name?
Quincy Delight Jones.
Oh, you got the whole name.
Right, and my son got the whole thing, too.
So he passed on the delights, so to speak.
Yes, he got it all.
Yeah.
Uh, we're gonna, what are we gonna do?
We're gonna, we have some footage here?
You wanna do this?
You wanna take a look at some of this?
You wanna talk about records for a while?
Sure, any time.
Okay, we're gonna see a minute or two from, uh, Uh, The Color Purple, uh, which
opens December
18th, uh, all over the United States, huh?
Yes.
Yeah, it's gonna be a big movie.
You can feel it, can't you?
I hope so.
Yeah.
All right, let's take a look at it here and see what we got.
Oh!
This is here, Sophia.
Sophia, that's a pretty name, huh?
Sophia, Sophia, Sophia.
I was gonna get married.
Looks like you got yourself in trouble.
No, sir, I ain't in no trouble.
Big though.
Who the daddy?
Harpo.
How he know that?
He know because he's the only one.
Celie, give me some lemonade.
Young women know good these days.
Got their legs open for every Tom, Dick, and Harpo.
No need to think I'ma let my boy marry you
just because you're in the family way.
Ain't cold enough.
He's young and limited.
Pretty gal like you can put anything over on him.
Who are the people in there?
That's Danny Glover as the father.
And his son is Willard Pugh.
And he's auditioning his new fiancee for Bride to be.
And that's Oprah Winfrey from Chicago.
She was a talk show hostess out there.
Yeah, now that's an interesting story.
The other lady that we saw in there is, of course...
Celie.
That's Whoopi Goldberg.
Now explain the woman from Chicago and how she got into the film.
Well, I was in Chicago out there to testify of Michael Jackson's lawsuit for
plagiarism trials, supposedly.
And I stayed up all night, so I was walking around, pacing the floor,
turned on the TV set at 9.15 in the morning,
and I saw this lady and said, felt to myself,
there's Sophia and didn't even know whether she could act or not.
And so we asked to get a videotape and send it to Stephen.
And there she is.
This is the luckiest woman on the face of the earth, isn't it?
And talented, too.
She does a very nice job in there.
Now, how many record albums did this thing end up selling?
Was it...
How many?
It's now tied with one other, I think.
Which one?
Thriller.
Oh, 38.
38 million.
38 million.
Good Lord.
Now, do you still do that for people?
If I came to you and wanted to make a record album,
would you produce one for me?
Can you sing?
No, I can't sing at all.
But now, you and Michael Jackson worked on it together?
Yes.
You wrote songs together?
Yes, I wrote one song.
Michael wrote four.
Uh-huh.
And we had various songs in the album.
Now, when you're putting together an album like that,
are you ever surprised that a song that goes on the album becomes a hit,
or are you ever surprised that it doesn't become a hit?
I'm surprised.
I mean this sincerely.
Everybody goes into the studio to make the biggest record in the world.
Sure.
And everybody's always surprised when it isn't the biggest record in the world.
Surprised when it's not, yeah.
200 that haven't done that, you know.
So, you are surprised when there's one that you really have a lot of hopes for,
and nothing happens to it.
That really shakes your antenna up, you know.
Now, when you get down to the final cut,
do you ever take a song off and replace it with another one,
and then save that song and then later give it to somebody else and it does
well?
That's happened.
On Thriller, we had four songs on there and had all the songs finished,
took four off and replaced it with PYT and Beat It and Human Nature.
What became the four you took off?
Some other people recorded.
Yeah, and what happened to them?
It was okay, you know, but it wasn't enough.
So, you knew what you were doing in that case?
No, we just got lucky.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
And then tell me about the first band you worked with when you were starting
out.
Well, I was 14 years old and I, 16-year-old was Ray Charles in Seattle.
Ray was 16, you were 14.
He was 16 and I was 14.
And it was Bumps Blackwell's band and we used to play for shot issues and
everything else
and we'd get together at 3 o'clock in the morning to play what we really liked,
which is bebop.
And then from that on, you stayed with it right on through, huh?
Right, Lionel Hampton and I wrote for Count Basie.
As a kid, you worked here in New York?
Oh, yes.
We did the first TV shows with Maury Amsterdam and Milton Berle in 1952.
You don't even remember all that, do you?
No, of course I do.
What do you think I am?
Of course, no, I'm like I'm four or something.
No, I remember that.
Gee, well, I couldn't be happier for you.
That's a great suit, by the way.
The movie opens the 18th and I'm sure it'll be a big success for you.
Like you need another success.
Congratulations, Quincy.
Nice meeting you.
We'll be back, folks.
Hotel accommodations for most guests of Late Night with David Letterman
finished by the Berkshire Place and Omni Classic Hotel in exchange for this
announcement.
For reservations at Omni Hotels in the U.S. and Europe, call toll-free 800-THE-OMNI.
Okay, that's it.
Quincy, thank you very much for being here.
My thanks to Martin Mull and Barbara Avant, the woman who peels hard-boiled
eggs tomorrow.
Marv Albert will be here.
Madeline Kahn and Tom Hanks.
Have a nice evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you.
Tomorrow morning on Today, a talk with Rockers, the Thompson Twins.
We'll see you next time.