When The Italian Job first came out, I saw it three times in one week. Barkingside ABC. Went with my dad, my grandad, my mates. We loved that film.So anyway, the genius of Quincy Jones: he scored it
By Martin Samuel
When The Italian Job first came out, I saw it three times in one week. Barkingside ABC. Went with my dad, my grandad, my mates. We loved that film.
So anyway, the genius of Quincy Jones: he scored it. He scored one of the most quintessentially English movies ever made. On Days Like These by Matt Monro is his song, as is “The Self-Preservation Society”, with its chorus so fluent in Cockney euphoria that if Quincy had turned out to be the alias of a young Chas and Dave nobody would be in the least surprised
It’s not actually called that, by the way. The real title is Getta Bloomin’ Move On!, because Jones composed it to accompany the daring bullion heist as the Minis made their escape from Turin and into the Alps. It’s such an iconic piece of music, so instantly recognisable and so very much ours that more than half a century later the Barmy Army’s trumpeter plays it at the cricket, as does the band that follows England’s football team. Yet its creator was born in Chicago, raised in Seattle, and descended from Cameroonian slaves.
Once you know it’s his, though, the influence of genius is obvious. The musical intricacies, the bass line, the marching drums. Long before it reaches that earworm chorus, Getta Bloomin’ Move On! is a masterpiece of scoring. So sublime is Jones’s arrangement that he gets kudos for saving the film from a mess of choppy edits in its final scenes.
The producers set him up in a flat in Marble Arch where he became immersed in East End culture, rhyming slang and songs like My Old Man’s a Dustman, pulling off a perfect appropriation of Sixties’ London culture, a tune that could accompany Noël Coward, as Mr Bridger, through a prison dining hall or be raucously sung by Michael Caine and his gang of gold thieves.
Then Jones packed up, went home and did Off The Wall and Thriller. How great is that?
The French connection
I once met someone who knew him. We were in France, covering an under-21 football tournament. I was playing table tennis against the bloke from the Daily Star when a passing spectator started offering tips. He said he had been the national champion at junior level. We got talking. He explained that his orchestra were performing at the local concert hall and then he was going down the coast to a jazz festival to play with his mate Quincy Jones and meet up with another good friend, Gérard Depardieu. We had him down as a spoofer, but then he picked up a paddle and wiped the floor with the pair of us.
Later, we went out to dinner. He was genuine. I’ve still got one of his CDs at home. It was a riotous night. We went to a restaurant in Toulon called Au Sourd, which means “for the deaf” because it’s next to the concert hall, their little joke. I remember asking him, as a Frenchman, what he thought of Australian wine. “As an Englishman,” he replied, “what do you think of Australian pop music?” Fair.
Coasting along
Not all tournaments were like the one in Toulon. Minimal work, French riviera locations. Even the matches were only 40 minutes each half. Those idyllic surrounds were the best-kept secret in sports journalism. There was a huge panic one year when Sky threatened to cover England’s games live and reveal to the world this life of Reilly. The first match was at a stadium on the beach in Bandol: topless bathers, white triangle sails on a sea of pure blue. We were toast. Fortunately, they found something better to do. Sadly, soon after, so did I.
We made drunken plans to all go down to the festival at the weekend. Then we had a bet on the 1991 European Cup final. Best bottle of champagne in the hotel. He backed Marseille but my fancy, Red Star Belgrade, won. The following night I was in my room suffering the violent effects of severe sunstroke and the phone wouldn’t stop ringing.
“Martin, you won, I have the champagne … ” I got the feeling he was playing piano with his free hand. There was also singing. I staggered back to the bathroom. So I never got to collect, or meet Quincy Jones.
Source: On Cockney culture, clever Quincy Jones was the guv’nor