Quincy Has a Jones For China

When Quincy Jones came to town in late May—to announce, according to a press release, that he would “write songs for Beijing Olympic Games”—That’s Beijing naturally had a hundred questions to ask the 71-time Grammy Award jazz nominee, media impresario, and Michael Jackson producer. What sort of songs would he write? Would the songs be used during ping-pong or wrestling matches? Would your songs certainly be used? How do you keep your white suit so clean? How’s Michael doing, and when could we expect him to come to town, too? When you told reporters in Shanghai that you hoped to “see the people, enjoy the music, touch the land, taste the food and even smell the air," did you also mean in Beijing?

Just as we nervously started to shoot off a few of these questions in the sleek lobby of Beijing’s Olympic Tower, the otherwise animated Mr. Jones, 73, fell silent, escorted That’s Beijing away from his entourage, and calmly grabbed our pen and notebook to scrawl a note in slightly shaky handwriting. “NOME SANE” it read. Given the circumstances, it seemed like it could have been code for “where’s the nearest exit?”

“Um, uhh. What is this? ‘Nome sane’?” That’s Beijing squinted, raising its sunglasses.

Quincy kept his on, and spoke the words. “Know what I’m sayin’?”

It was cool, strange, amusing, and cryptic. In other words, it was like any a public statement by the Beijing Olympic committee, except in jive.

And probably just as well. Before they began their press conference, Mr. Jones, Jiang Xiaoyu, the executive vice-president of Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), and a gaggle of advisors held a quick planning meeting in a side room. There, it quickly became clear that neither side quite knew what Mr. Jones’ involvement would be.

Mr. Jiang seemed to explain that Mr. Jones’s song wouldn’t necessarily be used during the Olympics. Or perhaps it would.

At another point, when discussing his exact involvement, Mr. Jones leaned in. “You don’t understand. When you have someone do the theme music for the Olympics, they do both the composing and the orchestration!” Hearing the translation, the Chinese contingent smiled and shifted in their chairs. That was not part of the plan.

“I just want to figure out what to say when I’m on the air,” said Mr. Jones. So we, the press, could know what he's saying.

The preparations for the 2008 Games—from building the stadiums to tackling the traffic problem—are many and complex, and choosing the music is no exception. While every Games employs the original Olympics theme song, “Bugler's Dream,” a fanfare written in the 1950s by a French composer named Leo Arnaud, each host city traditionally chooses another piece of music to mark their turn. Or in the case of Beijing, a few: the “Song for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games,” the "Song for Volunteers of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games” and the “Theme Song for Volunteers of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.”

To choose just the right songs—and theme song—the organizers are running an open competition that has just entered its fourth round and will continue until 2008. So far more than 500 pieces of music and 5000 lyric works have been contributed; Mr. Jiang seemed to say that, once finished, Mr. Jones’s song would be thrown onto the pile too.

But what kind of theme song would Mr. Jones, who has won 23 Grammy awards, submit? First of all, he explained, he would be working on theme music, not a theme song. Hmm? “Let me ask you this, do you know the words to Star Wars?” He da-daa-dahed the famous theme by John Williams (an erstwhile Olympics theme composer himself). “You catch my drift? Theme music, it doesn’t have words—theme songs do.”

The jazz master, who has collaborated with Miles Davis, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, and who was encouraged to submit a song by pal Jackie Chan, would not be accepting money for his piece. “This is not about [making] money. I've already done that.” While he hasn’t started writing it yet, he said he imagined his theme would be a “global gumbo,” incorporating pop music, western themes, and of course, traditional Chinese stuff. “I love that instrument, the one with the strings,” he said pantomiming the guzheng, the Chinese zither.

But that certainly wasn’t all the impresario loved of China, which was “awesome,” he told a room full of reporters. “I've several times considered selling my home in California and staying here. Between the food, and the culture, and the beautiful people—the beautiful ladies, incredible ladies, the most beautiful, beautiful women I've ever seen in my life, whaaaaow! Oh, good God. I don't know how you're going to translate that.”

He said he was going to spread the word about China among his friends, certainly a not unimpressive group (Bill, Mandela, Kofi, and Sean were among those mentioned). “You can rest assured, you have a great ambassador.”

Sadly, in addition to leaving un-assured about his precise involvement in the Olympics, That’s Beijing missed its chance to ask Mr. Jones about Mr. Jackson. Would he be coming to the Olympics? Given the one-time King of Pop’s recent tour of Asia, and Jones’ star-drawing abilities, we think we might know the answer. Nome sane?

a version of this piece ran in That's Beijing, July 2006