JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

There is one person who has worked with Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles. He wrote dozens of scores for film and TV, and eventually produced movies and TV shows, and got megastars together to sing "We Are The World" for charity. That would, of course, be Quincy Jones, who died last night at age 91.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Before he changed the course of popular music, he got his first big break in a jazz big band. Quincy Jones spoke with NPR's Michele Norris in 2008. We pick up their conversation from when he was growing up in Chicago, in what he called the heart of the ghetto.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

QUINCY JONES: Gangsters. Nothing but gangsters. Back in the '30s, it was all I ever saw was machine guns and stogies and big piles of money on the lights.

MICHELE NORRIS: You saw all this?

JONES: That's all - as a kid, that's all I saw. I wanted to be a gangster till I was 11. Are you kidding?

NORRIS: In your book, you tell the story - you say that they pinned my hand to a wooden fence with a switchblade...

JONES: That's right.

NORRIS: ...When I was 7 years old. Who was they?

JONES: They...

NORRIS: What did they do to you?

JONES: ...Is being on the wrong block. If you went on the wrong street and didn't have the right call, you'd get a switchblade through your hand. I was 7 years old.

NORRIS: And they literally pinned your hand to a fence?

JONES: Yeah. It was a switchblade, but also ice pick in my temple (laughter). That's real fun.

NORRIS: They just - they held it to your temple or did they actually...

JONES: Oh, no. They stuck it in my temple.

NORRIS: Oh, my goodness.

JONES: Oh, yeah. I got the scar right - I've got my medals to prove it.

NORRIS: How did you get out of Chicago?

JONES: Capone ran the Jones boys out because they didn't know they were making so much money, and they ran them to Mexico. And my dad came and got my brother and I at the barber shop the next day, and took us on a Trailway bus, no toys, and went straight to the Northwest. He worked in the Bremerton Navy Yard during the World War II, and then we went to Seattle two years later.

NORRIS: Now, that's where you met up with Ray Charles.

JONES: That's right. Exactly. Exactly - you got your homework on.

NORRIS: You know, I did my homework.

JONES: You sure did.

NORRIS: I knew who I was going to talking to.

JONES: I met Ray Charles at 14, and he was 16. But he was, like, a hundred years older than me.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RAY CHARLES: (Singing) Quincy, my buddy, my buddy quite so true.

NORRIS: How did you meet?

JONES: We met - it wasn't like the film. We met up at the Elks Club. The Elks Club is where we all went after all of the paying jobs, whatever they were, whenever they came. That's where we went to just play bebop for - jam all night for free.

(SOUNDBITE OF BEBOP MUSIC)

NORRIS: Musically speaking, you've bridged so many genres and generations also. I understand that Lionel Hampton was the person who gave you your big break. I want you to tell me not just about Lionel Hampton, but also about Gladys Hampton 'cause I understand...

JONES: Yeah, Gladys...

NORRIS: ...She stayed on top of you.

JONES: ...She was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. I was very upset, though, when I got thrown off the bus 'cause I really wanted to go on the road. That's all I cared about. And she said...

NORRIS: Thrown off the bus?

JONES: ...Honey, what's that child doing on here, Lionel? (Laughter) Honey, get off of this bus and go back to school. We'll talk later (laughter). And I sat on the bus for four hours, so they wouldn't change their mind. And boy, that didn't happen.

NORRIS: Tell me the story.

JONES: At 15 years old, he saw a piece of music I'd written called "Suite For The Four Winds." I didn't know what I was doing. He wanted to hire me as a trumpet player and arranger, and I just jumped on the bus. I didn't want to tell my parents or anybody. I didn't want to let them change their mind because it'd been my dream to be a member of a big band.

And Lionel Hampton at the time was bigger than Duke Ellington, Basie and Louis Armstrong. They all worked with Joe Glaser of Associated Booking, and he was the No. 1 band. He wrote 300 days a year, you know? And it was the most exciting, educational learning experience I ever had in my life.

NORRIS: So you went back to Berklee to study music.

JONES: Yes.

NORRIS: It wasn't called Berklee at the time.

JONES: It was the Schillinger House of Music. That was a Russian mathematician. My teacher said, Quincy, you're going to learn everything everybody ever did with the 12 notes - from Stravinsky to Elvin Bird to Duke Ellington - everybody. I spent 28 years to hone my craft so I could write any kind of music. And I learned so much by working as a conductor and arranger for, you know, Billy Eckstine, there's Ray Charles, and Peggy Lee with no pressure on me. And those days, we didn't care about money or fame. We couldn't care less.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AS TIME GOES BY")

PEGGY LEE: (Singing) Moonlight and love songs...

SUMMERS: The music super producer, Quincy Jones, in conversation with NPR's Michele Norris in 2008. His publicist says he died Sunday night at his home, surrounded by family.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AS TIME GOES BY")

LEE: (Singing) Jealousy and hate. Woman needs man, and man must have his mate. That no one can deny. It's still the same old story. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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