Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones Rhino Records, 2001 4 CDs   Buy it online   Reviewed by Tony Buchsbaum	Jaw-dropping is right. Man, it just goes on and on and on, through 74 tracks on four CDs that span something like 50 years of the history of music. Not just jazz music or blues music or film music or pop music or rap music. Music. Period. Take a look at the songs. "The Song is You," "Makin' Whoopee," "Misty," "Sophisticated Lady," "Soul Bossa Nova," "In the Heat of the Night," "Ease on Down the Road," "Miss Celie's Blues," "Fly Me to the Moon," "Thriller," "Stomp!," "We Are the World," "Killer Joe," "Takin' It to the Streets," "Just Once," "Back on the Block," "The Secret Garden." Only one man appears in the credits behind each of these classics and hundreds more. And that name is Quincy Jones. Performer. Composer. Arranger. Producer. Quincy Jones has worn all these hats, and he wore them so well that it seemed each hat was made for him. No matter the genre, no matter the artist, no matter the song, Quincy Jones has made it all his own. His stamp and influence are everywhere. And it's all over the four CDs in Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones, a brilliant box of music and companion to the enthralling book, Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones. There's really no one else like him. The best of the best have wanted to work with him: Lionel Hampton, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Tony Bennett, B.B. King, Johnny Mathis, Shirley Horn, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Patti Austin, James Ingram, Lesley Gore, Chaka Khan, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross, Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, Stevie Wonder, Barry White and scores of others (including Barbra Streisand, though she doesn't appear in the box set). I don't know of anyone else who's worked with all those people. There probably isn't anyone. But then, there isn't anyone like Quincy Jones. His real name is this: Quincy Delight Jones II. Delight? Absolutely -- and never was there a more appropriate middle name. Just listen to the music: it tells you everything you need to know about the man. He seems not to have the word "no" in his vocabulary. Nor the word "limit." He seems to have a command of just about every musical language there is. He fell in love with jazz -- and he played the best of it in the best big bands. He always wanted to score films -- and he did, to astounding effect. He became a pop producer -- and created the best-selling album of all time, the pop masterpiece Thriller. He ventured into rap, which he considers an extension of bebop -- and fashioned "Back on the Block," featuring the best rap performers of our time. You could get yourself a multiple-CD player and drop the four CDs into the tray. Press "play." And just sit back and let it wash over you. But, of course, that's impossible. The music of Quincy Jones doesn't wash over you. It invades you. Caresses you. Seduces you. Plays with you and for you. It inspires you and moves you. Most of the box sets that have become so vogue in recent years offer an overview of an artist's or a group's career. Such sets are interesting because they assemble all the greatest hits, gathering them into one convenient place. But Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones is different. It contains hits, and many of them are great. But what's offered here are not simply the best. Rather, each song is at the top of a pyramid, and below each are a dozen others, just as good, just as inspired, just as flawlessly artful. A musical biography? I don't think so. You'd do better thinking of this set not as a comprehensive collection or retrospective, but as a sampler of the work of the most talented, the most versatile man in music. One of Quincy's best songs is performed by James Ingram and Patti Austin. It's called "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" The answer to the question is quite simple: Just make sure Quincy Jones keeps on making it. | January 2002 Tony Buchsbaum is the author of Total Eclipse. At night he works on another novel and a screenplay. Days, he writes advertising copy in Lawrenceville, NJ, where he lives with his wife and sons.	Performer. Composer. Arranger. Producer. Quincy Jones has worn all these hats, and he wore them so well that it seemed each hat was made for him. No matter the genre, no matter the artist, no matter the song, Quincy Jones has made it all his own. His stamp and influence are everywhere.