The Recording Academy® Producers & Engineers Wing ® will celebrate its sixth annual GRAMMY® Week event titled “An Evening of Jazz” honoring 27-time GRAMMY® winner and multi-talented music producer Quincy Jones and 18-time GRAMMY-winning producer/engineer Al Schmitt for their commitment to excellence and ongoing support for the art and craft of recorded music.
The event will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013, at The Village Studios in West Los Angeles. GRAMMY Week culminates with the 55th Annual GRAMMY Awards® on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013, airing live on the CBS Television Network, at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
“The tireless efforts of the P&E Wing continue to raise awareness of the ever-evolving climate of sound quality and the increasing interest in the preservation and integrity of recorded music,” said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy. “This year, it is with great honor that we pay tribute to two industry pioneers who also continue to raise awareness in the field of recording and who have set precedents of excellence within the music community. The contributions of both Quincy Jones and Al Schmitt are innumerable as are their incomparable bodies of work and we look forward to an unforgettable evening with these two icons.”
With a career spanning more than six decades and encompassing the roles of composer; film, record and TV producer; artist; arranger; conductor; record company executive; magazine founder; multi-media entrepreneur and humanitarian, Quincy Jones is the epitome of an entertainment impresario. While following his passion as a jazz musician in the ’50s, Jones quickly realized his gift for musical arrangement, which led him to work with artists such as Count Basie, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, and Dinah Washington. Through the ’60s and ’70s, his career continued to blossom, arranging for legendary artists Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra. With a total of 33 major motion picture scores to date, Jones became the first African-American to break into the world of film scoring. In the ’80s, Jones produced Michael Jackson ‘s legendary albums: Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad, which went on to sell more than 200 million copies worldwide collectively. He has received numerous international awards and accolades, among them 27 GRAMMY Awards, a Recording Academy Trustees Award in 1989 and a GRAMMY Legend Award in 1991. He is a longtime humanitarian and activist, and is the founder of the Quincy Jones Musiq Consortium, which celebrates and preserves the history of American popular music through music education programs in schools across the country.
Al Schmitt was introduced to the studio world at the age of 7 by his uncle, an engineer at the legendary Brunswick Records. At 19, he was employed at Apex Studios and mentored by Tom Dowd, who provided a well-rounded schooling that would serve Schmitt for more than four decades as an engineer and producer. From renowned studios Nola to Fulton Recording, where he learned the art of engineering for large orchestras from Bob Doherty, to his move to Radio Recorders in Hollywood, Schmitt’s engineering prowess continued to grow through innovative recording techniques and an impressive discography of jazz artists. Throughout his illustrious career at RCA he engineered for Henry Mancini, garnering him his first GRAMMY win in 1962 for Hatari! While
Schmitt’s engineering roster included Ray Charles, Rosemary Clooney, Horace Silver, Cal Tjader, and Ike and Tina Turner among others, in 1966 he switched his aspirations to become a producer. As a producer, Schmitt has worked with such artists as Jefferson Airplane, Jackson Browne, Sam Cooke , and Neil Young. His love for the sound board ultimately returned him to engineering, and he went on to make sonically exquisite and highly influential recordings for the likes of George Benson , Dee Dee Bridgewater, Natalie Cole, Kurt Elling, Diana Krall, Shelby Lynne, Paul McCartney, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Toto, and more. Schmitt has recorded more than 150 gold and platinum albums, has won 18 GRAMMY Awards—including 10 in the Best Engineered category—two Latin GRAMMY Awards and, in 2006, received a Recording Academy Trustees Award.
