Quincy Jones’ 10 Best Scores for Film & Television

Though Jones’ musical compositions for the TV adaptation of Alex Haley’s sprawling tome Roots mainly appeared in the first episode, his score for the 1977 miniseries won him an Emmy alongside Gerald Fried. It also led to an ambitious (albeit short) soundtrack, where Jones tracks a musical sojourn that starts in Africa, travels across the Atlantic in shackles, ends up on auction blocks in the American South and begins to catch a glimpse of freedom during the Civil War. – Joe Lynch

Paul Mazursky’s movie about free love and wife-swapping earned four Oscar nominations, but none for Jones’ jazzy, of-the-era, string-laden score, which provided a pivotal shift in his composing career. In addition to his originals, Jones called on the masters, adapting music from Handel’s Messiah for the main theme, including cheekily using the “Hallelujah Chorus,” as well as co-opting Messiah music for “Sun Dance” and “Celebration of Life.”  In a 2014 interview, Jones said he intentionally took the job to keep from getting typecast after scoring dark dramas like In Cold Blood and In the Heat of the Night. – Melinda Newman

Though many of his most celebrated scores accompanied thematically hefty dramas, Jones was also the guy who composed the impish “Bossa Nova Soul,” later made famous for its usage in the Austin Powers films — which is to say, he excelled at writing frothy tunes, too. The Italian Job is a slice of the silly, swingin’ ‘60s, from the harpsichord-laden, winkingly stuffy “Brittania and Mr. Bridger” to the Canned Heat-esque “It’s Caper Time” to the woozy blues-rock of “Smell That Gold!” It’s all good, goofy fun that is a time capsule in the best possible way. – J. Lynch

Jones stepped in for Jerry Fielding to score the Sam Peckinpah thriller about a con who goes on the run after he and his wife botch a heist (it stars Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw, who started their real-life love affair on the movie). Jones’ score, which featured a lush love theme (“Faraway Forever”) and an enchanting end theme, with harmonica solos by Toots Thielemans and vocals by Don Elliott, earned him a Golden Globe nomination. – M. Newman

Even if you’ve never seen the Raymond Burr-starring detective series that ran from 1967-1975, you’ve probably heard the theme song at some point, if only thanks to its memorable inclusion in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. From the punchy, piercing horns to those screeching synth sirens to the clanging rhythm section, the Ironside theme is an anxious, excitable interrobang of a TV theme song – one so good that Jones couldn’t help expanding it into a four-minute funk-jazz joint for his 1971 album Smackwater Jack. – J. Lynch

Jones’ first film score was a jazzy, sophisticated affair that gave Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker – a bleak drama about an emotionally shut-down Holocaust survivor running a pawn shop in New York City – much of its lifeblood. In contrast to the bitter, guarded leading man played by Rod Steiger, Jones’ score – subdued lounge music one moment, clanging bossa nova the next – brings the city (and the film) to life in all its vibrant, messy vitality. – J. Lynch

Sanford & Son (1972-77) remains one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. Still in reruns, the series starred comic icon Redd Foxx as irascible junk dealer Fred G. Sanford and Demond Wilson as his ever-tolerant son Lamont. Just as popular was Jones’ catchy theme song: “Sanford & Son Theme (The Streetbeater).” The funked-up, edgy instrumental — with legend Chuck Rainey on bass — is reminiscent of Jones’ theme song precursor “Hikky Burr” for The Bill Cosby Show (1969-1971). Released as a single from Jones’ 1973 A&M album You’ve Got It Bad Girl, “The Streetbeater” didn’t make a dent on the Billboard charts, but it was included in Jones’ 1996 Greatest Hits compilation. – Gail Mitchell

Multi-hyphenate Jones served as both co-producer and score composer for the 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title. Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover and Chicago talk show host-turned actor Oprah Winfrey (at the behest of Jones), the film sets its action against a sonic background that integrates classical and period jazz along with blues/ragtime and gospel. Standout tracks from the double album (the second disc is the score itself) include “Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister),” sung by the character Shug Avery (portrayed by Margaret Avery) with vocals dubbed by singer Tata Vega, and the church-bred testimonial “Maybe God Is Tryin’ to Tell You Somethin’.” The Color Purple soundtrack earned two Academy Award nominations: best original score and best original song for “Miss Celie’s Blues.” — G. Mitchell

Richard Brooks’ harrowing 1967 adaptation of Truman Capote’s 1966 book about a real-life quadruple murder in Kansas boasts one of Jones’ finest film scores. Jittery bass lines, off-kilter drumbeats and ominous horns ebb and flow over the course of 32 jittery minutes – this is music to crawl out of your skin to. Future composers were undoubtedly listening (the syncopated, unsettling “Hangin’ Paper” sounds like a blueprint for much of the music of Twin Peaks) even if Capote himself had reservations. “Truman Capote, that motherf–ker, he called Richard Brooks up on In Cold Blood and said, ‘Richard, I don’t understand why you’ve got a Negro doing the music for a film with no people of color in it,’” Jones told GQ in 2018. “And Richard Brooks said, ‘F–k you, he’s doing the music.’” Thank you, Mr. Brooks: cinematic history is better off for that well-deployed “f–k you.” – J. Lynch

Jones wrote in his memoir that In the Heat of the Night was one of 35 film scores he’d composed by the late ’60s that burned him out — “hits and flops, some of which I can’t remember and some of which shouldn’t be remembered.” Conspicuously not in that category is this funky, authoritative orchestral soundtrack, starring Ray Charles on the title track, avant-garde jazz giant Roland Kirk on flute for the frenetic “Cotton Curtain” and Glen Campbell on vocals in “Bowlegged Polly.” Snippets of Sidney Poitier, as Philly homicide detective Virgil Tibbs, are reminders that Norman Jewison’s incisive 1967 film noir about racism in America is the best way to experience the music, swinging between the goofy light and suspenseful dark. – Steve Knopper