Nominated for 12 Grammy Awards, including the later win for Jones for Producer of the Year, Quincy’s 1981 album The Dudewas simply one of the tightest realizations of his talents: orchestration, arranging, sequencing, his ear for anticipating new sounds, and ability to assemble an knock-out team of musicians, writers and engineers. Quincy’s work bridged, melded and fused genres in ways that others couldn’t do and with its multi-faceted moods and complex arrangements The Dude is a unique composite of bebop, jazz, funk, pop balladry and dance, with shades of African syncopation, quiet storm, and nods to the then-nascent hip-hop scene. Rolling in the pocket with Jones was an elite band of musicians that included Herbie Hancock, Greg Phillinganes and Stevie Wonder on keys, Louis Johnson on bass, Jerry Hey on horn, Syreeta Wright and Michael Jackson providing background vocals, while star-making vocal performances come from Patti Austin and James Ingram. With engineer Bruce Swedien at the desk, Rod Temperton writing four of the album’s nine cuts, the atmospheric and keening harmonica of Toots Thielemans, the delicacy and tenderness of Ingram’s distinctive baritone, Austin’s razor-sharp technique and instinctive sensuality, especially on Stevie Wonder’s serpentine funk composition, Betcha Wouldn’t Hurt Me it’s an album that makes you want to groove, dance, and love someone.
