Quincy Jones -- Soul Bossa Nova

Quincy Jones (1933-2024)
from the LA Times via Wikimedia Commons

Now that I've put up a rare Monday Reminiscings of Youth article just now and I'm going to do the same here, people must be wondering why I've gone all ROY on KKP. Well, one excuse is that it is a national holiday in Japan known as Culture Day. I don't usually include Japanese national holidays when I do the special holiday version of ROY, but for today I'm making an exception due to the passing of a couple of music figures in my life.

I've already posted one on singer Jack Jones and now we have here a tribute to Quincy Jones, one of the most prolific and successful songwriters and music producers the world has ever known. His file on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" is already fairly large thanks to entries such as his phenomenal 1981 album "The Dude" and his collaborations with Michael Jackson, including the album "Thriller".

Jones had already been in the music business for several years since the 1950s when he released his first single in 1962, "Soul Bossa Nova". Sound familiar?

If it does, you are probably one of the many folks who caught any of the "Austin Powers" movies with Mike Myers. One couldn't have asked for a more Swinging 1960s tune to accompany the British spy and his fellow dancers. The give-and-take between the flutes and the horns is truly groovy, baby!

Probably, though, for a lot of us Canadians, hearing "Soul Bossa Nova" as part of an "Austin Powers" movie was nostalgically surprising than revelatory. That's probably because we had heard it before...as the theme for the Canadian game show "Definition" with Jim Perry throughout the 70s and 80s. I certainly had no idea about what the title was and what its pedigree was...just knew it as the theme from "Definition" and it was probably the biggest thing that I can remember about the show.

According to Wikipedia, "Soul Bossa Nova" was also a track on Jones' 1962 "Big Band Bossa Nova" album and apparently it took no more than twenty minutes for the composer to whip up. I had no idea that Lalo Schifrin, the master behind the themes for "Mission: Impossible" and "Mannix", was the piano player on "Soul Bossa Nova".

I know that Jones left this world a very elderly man at 91, but it's still a big void that he's left in music and we can be grateful at least that he's left this huge legacy of music from movies, television and the recording booth. My condolences to his family, friends and millions of fans.

"Soul Bossa Nova" was released in December 1962. Therefore, why not have the last three performers on the White team from NHK's Kohaku Utagassen that year show up?

Hideo Murata -- Osho (王将)

Frank Nagai -- Kiriko no Tango （霧子のタンゴ）

Michiya Mihashi -- Hoshikuzu no Machi (星屑の町)