Quincy Jones and the Second Bullet

It's been a few weeks since Quincy passed. I've been thinking about what I could say that hasn't already been said about this amazing human. My feed has been flooded by heartfelt tributes, many by friends who've had the life-changing opportunity to work with the gentleman.

I never got to work with Q, but I was blessed to have two conversations with him. One was particularly significant when he invited me to sit down and have a bottle of wine with him late one evening after a Grammy Producers and Engineers Wing party.

He told me so many stories from his life that night. Some I had heard, some took me by surprise. There's one in particular I'd like to share. While Q had a personal connection to so many culturally significant things, I don't think many people know this one, and had things played out differently, so many things would be different today.

Quincy told me he dodged three bullets in his life. The first: he survived a fatal car crash while touring in Europe with a jazz band. The third: he was diagnosed with a serious disease, I honestly don't remember what it was but he experienced a miracle healing.

The second bullet came in August of 1969, and started innocuously enough as a minor affliction suffered by many men. Quincy had started to become concerned that his hair was thinning and he called a hairdresser friend of his to find out what he could do. The friend had a serum? he thought would help and as it turned out, they both were going to the same party that night in Benedict Canyon, Beverly Hills.

Quincy left the studio and went home to get ready for the party. Once there, he told me that a crushing wave of exhaustion came over him. “I couldn't fight it and fell into a deep sleep.”

The next thing he knew, he heard his phone ringing. He didn't get up to pick up the call, but it started to wake him up. The phone rang again and he opened his eyes and it was daylight. Realizing somebody must have an important reason to be calling that early in the day, he answered the phone.

The voice on the other line exclaimed “Oh my God Q, thank God you're alive!”

Quincy replied “What are you talking about? I just woke up.”

“Turn on the news.”

Quincy turned on the news and went cold. All they were talking about was a brutal mass murder that occurred the previous night at Roman Polanski's house. Sharon Tate and many others had been killed.

“That was the party I was going to go to. Had I not fallen asleep, I may have also been one of the victims of the Charles Manson family.

After he told me that, I sat with it for a minute and replied? “Wow Q., you're luck to be alive. The moral of that story sounds to me like your vanity can get you killed or sometimes resting is more important than partying.”?

Quincy laughed, slapped me on my knee and said “Cat you really get it, you really really get it.”?

“All joking aside Quincy,” I said. “ I'm reeling at what consequences would have been had you died at that time? We Are the World, Thriller, Roots, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, all those things you told me about tonight, heck even the Sanford and Son theme song. They maybe never would have happened, or at the very least, they would be very different.”

Quincy looked me in the eyes and said again, but this time more softly “Yeah Cat, you really get it.”

I count that night, among the best of my career. I'm so grateful to have had those moments. Rest in peace Q, I guess the bullet finally got you.

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