Among Quincy’s banner events in 2008 was his 75th birthday on March 14. One of his biggest birthday celebrations, however, was held four months later at the Montreux Jazz Festival where Q was honored with a star-studded, nearly six-hour concert.

Below you can check out video of Quincy addressing the crowd at the event.

Montreux was the perfect site for a celebration in Quincy’s honor, since Q has a close connection to the famed jazz fest.

From 1991 through 1993, Quincy served as co-producer of the festival. It was during his first year in that role that Q convinced Miles Davis to revisit his classic ’60s repertoire, originally arranged by Gil Evans. The performance captured on Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux is considered Davis’ final artistic triumph. He died several months later.

Quincy returned to Montreux in 1996 to celebrate his own anniversary of five decades of music making. The all-star performances captured on Quincy Jones: 50 Years in Music - Live at Montreux 1996 include Patti Austin, Mick Hucknell of Simply Red, Chaka Khan and others. 

Austin, Hucknell and Khan were among the artists that performed at Quincy’s 75th birthday celebration, along with Herbie Hancock, Al Jarreau, Nana Mouskouri, Petula Clark, Angelique Kidjo, and relative newcomers Ledisi and Paolo Nutini.

You can read a full report on the event filed by Stephanie Nebehay for Reuters here and view an accompanying slide show here.

Below you can view Nutini performing the Brothers Johnson’s 1977 Quincy-produced hit “Strawberry Letter 23″ at the concert.

Quincy ended 2008 on a high note with the publication of The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey & Passions and several book-signing events to promote the acclaimed coffee table book. 

While all of the events were special in their own right, a highlight on Q’s promotional tour was the December 16 date at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, where Quincy sat down for a discussion with noted journalist Ben Fong-Torres. 

Like Quincy, Fong-Torres had his likeness portrayed by an actor in a major motion picture. Best known of his tenure at Rolling Stone magazine from 1969 through 1981, Fong-Torres was portrayed by actor Terry Chen in the 2000 film Almost Famous, writer-director Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical account of his rise as a young rock journalist. Quincy was portrayed by actor Larenz Tate in 2004’s Ray, the biopic of Q’s longtime friend and musical collaborator Ray Charles. 

At the Herbst, Fong-Torres played specific songs during his conversation with Q, allowing Quincy the opportunity to comment on the tracks, and the audience to gain a better perspective about the music that was being discussed. You can watch a portion of Q’s conversation with Fong-Torres in the video clip below, courtesy of FORA.tv.

Also on the Northern California swing of his promotional tour, Q stopped at Book Passage in Corte Madera, north of San Francisco, on December 17. Those in the house at that event included guitar god Carlos Santana, producer Narada Michael Walden and folk legend Taj Mahal. Santana had the honor of introducing Q, calling him “the Duke Ellington of our time.” During the question-and-answer portion of the evening, Quincy fielded questions from Raoul Goff, publisher and CEO of Insight Editions, a division of Palace Press, which published Q’s book. You can watch a portion of that interview below, courtesy of MarinLocalMusic.com via YouTube.

To say 2008 was a monumental year for Quincy is putting it lightly. First and foremost, it marked his 75th birthday, but that was just one of many highlights. In the coming days we’re looking back at Q’s various highlights of 2008 in our The Year in Q retrospective.

We’ll begin with the Grammys, an institution that is certainly no stranger to Q. Over the years, Quincy has received the most nominations of any artist in history with 79 and the most Grammys of any living artist with 27. 

To mark his long association and significance with the Recording Academy — the organization behind the Grammys — Quincy was named the ambassador of the 50th Grammy Awards. Q took part and was honored at several events even before 2008 began, including the annual Starry Night benefit concert and dinner on July 28, 2007, where he was presented with a Leadership Award, and the Grammys on the Hill activities on September 5, 2007, where he was an honoreee.

In 2008, at the 50th Anniversary Grammy Awards on February 10, 2008, Q had the honor of presenting the album of the year honors with Usher to his longtime friend and collaborator Herbie Hancock, who took the award for his Joni Mitchell tribute, River: The Joni Letters.

As the Associated Press reported, Quincy made quite an impression on stage. “Presenter Quincy Jones seemed even more excited for the 11-time Grammy winner, throwing his hands wide after reading Hancock’s name. ‘Aaaahhh! Unbelievable. That’s unbelievable, man,’ Jones exclaimed.”

In honor of the Grammys, Quincy wrote about his own Grammy experiences in a special edition of his Q Notes column, originally published in Billboard magazine. You can read it here. 

This edition of Q Notes was originally published in Billboard magazine in early 2008 to coincide with Quincy serving as ambassador of 50th anniversary celebration of the Grammys and the Recording Academy.

BY QUINCY JONES

The Grammy Awards turn 50 this year, believe it or not—and I’m honored I was asked to be the ambassador of the 50th anniversary celebration.

I was there at the start. I remember being at a meeting where people like Nesuhi Ertegun, John Hammond and George Avakian were talking about trying to create a recording academy. Johnny Mercer and some people at Capitol Records were trying to do the same thing.

It’s exciting to see something that’s a dream—just an idea—come to fruition. The Recording Academy has worked because of the collective aspect of it. It’s a tribal thing. You can be judged by your peers, by a criteria set by people who do the same thing you do. Broadway had it; film people had it. So we had to have it, too.

I’ve been told my 27 Grammys are the most trophies won by any living artist. But the late great conductor Sir Georg Solti has the most Grammy wins of all time, with 31. I met him once in Switzerland at Stravinsky Hall on Lake Geneva, where they do the Montreux Jazz Festival. He sat in his chair, with his arms folded and an attitude and said, “You and that moonwalking friend of yours will never catch up to me.” It was cute. I said, “Let’s not worry about that tonight; let’s just have a good time.” He was proud—and he should have been, because he did some great work.

I couldn’t pick my favorite Grammy. They all mean something to me—from the most recent one in 2002, best spoken word album for the audiobook of my autobiography, all the way back to my first one in 1964, best instrumental arrangement for Count Basie’s “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” Barbra Streisand won her first Grammy that year, too.

This year, one of the songs nominated for best rap song is Kanye West’s “Good Life.” Kanye sampled “P.Y.T.,” a song James Ingram and I wrote for Michael Jackson more than 25 years ago.

Through the years, though I’ve won 27 Grammys, I’ve also lost 52. I know what it feels like on both sides, so I appreciate it when it works out. It’s like Count Basie used to say, “Young blood, there will always be hills and valleys. And the valleys help validate who you are when it gets rough out there.”

This will likely be our last post before the holidays, so thought it would be appropriate to leave you with a special holiday greeting from Q.

WATCH your thoughts, for they become WORDS.
Choose your WORDS, for they become ACTIONS.
Understand your actions, for the become habits.
STUDY your HABITS, for they become your character.
Develop your character, for it WILL become your DESTINY.

LOVE, LAUGH, LIVE & GIVE!
WISHING YOU A COOL YULE AND A LOVING NEW YEAR,

QUINCY
AND THE ENTIRE JONES FAMILY