Listings 34 BEFORE BARRY GORDY, before Russell Simmons, before P. ...

BEFORE BARRY GORDY, before Russell Simmons, before P. Diddy, before all of them, there was Quincy Jones. And before Jones had his hand in a different pot of every popular entertainment in America, he was a jazz musician and composer. I was mostly familiar with Jones' work as a producer, helping Michael Jackson to create 1979's Off the Wall and 1982's Thriller, which went on to become the biggest-selling album of all time. He also produced a hit for Chaka Kahn and Rufus during the same time period, "Ain't Nobody." But let's dig deeper.

Jones is truly a renaissance man. He's composed film scores, television scores, worked with some of the most influential names in jazz, including Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk; he was a member of Dizzy Gillespie's band. After working with Count Basie and his orchestra in 1964, Jones went on to conduct and arrange them; he worked with Sinatra on It Might as Well Be Swing. Part of Jones' self-preservation as an artist is his ability to use a whole palette of sounds and cross genre lines without compromising too much of his style. Many jazz purists labeled him a sellout in the early 60s, when he went on to produce and arrange pop and r&b records for Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, some Ray Charles cuts on the Atlantic label and Lesley Gore, whose tearful teenage anthem, "It's My Party," shot right up the charts. No doubt Quincy cried all the way to the bank.

My interest in Jones was sparked by a reissue of a 1969 recording session for the Bill Cosby Show called The Original Jam Sessions on Concord Records. The tracks are a fusion of psychedelic rock, open jazz and meaty funk with classy session players like the organist Jimmy Smith, Ernie Watts, Ray Brown and Milt Jackson. The cross-pollination of these sounds during this time period was becoming common, and jazz musicians-whose minds were open to new sonic dimensions-were among the first to adapt.

Back to the present. Nowadays, producers can't wait to get their hands on original tracks and outtakes to reshape them for contemporary audiences. And they've done that for The New Mixes, Vol. 1, wherein a whole host of knob-twiddlers rework Jones' 1969 sessions to create new tracks. I can't believe they didn't tap David Holmes, but the line-up here is well suited, with Mixmaster Mike, Ursula 1000 and Mario Caldato, Jr., who turns in the funkiest cut on the album, "Jimmy's Theme." The new tracks won't work on a dance floor, but it's wonderful headphone music for the subway. The original is still the one to go with. As Frank would have probably said: Quincy, you're a genius, baby. o