[Obituary] RIP Phil Leah and Quincy Jones

Two of the most important musicians to audiophiles have died recently. Our obituary today is not going to cover the same material as everywhere else because these two giants of the world of music have special significance for audiophiles less covered elsewhere. Philip Chapman Lesh (March 15, 1940 - October 25, 2024) and Quincy Jones (March 14, 1933 - November 3, 2024) are two of the most culturally significant figures of the genus audiophilia, both contributing to cultural shifts in the domestic audio field.

It was Phil Lesh, along with Owsley 'Bear' Stanley (Owsley was both supplier of technology and supplier of LSD to the band and their entourage), who designed and developed the Greatful Dead's Wall of Sound. It took 2 years of intense R&D to create this >10 metre tall sound reinforcement system. Until then, the backline combos plus vocals PA were the standard modus operandi of rock bands. These then grew in response to the wider bandwidth and growing musical complexity of contemporary amplified music and in response to what the Dead's Wall of Sound proved could be achieved.

In the 1970s many nascent hi-fi enthusiasts began their quest when their parents' stereo at home simply failed to mimic the concert experience. The capacity of the Grateful Dead Wall of Sound to project with clarity a full bandwidth of every note to the whole audience was exactly what PA builders were trying to achieve with their combination of immense stage side stacks and instrument backline. We concert goers in the 1970s got used to excellent dispersion and solid bass capable of reproducing the individual tones of two different kick drums and a low B string. We wanted this at home too. Audio priorities were previously led by the classical and chamber music needs of the equipment designers and reviewers but now wide dynamics and deep bandwidth were the buying priorities of concert going young couples setting up their home audio. Big three way floor-standing loudspeakers driven by big integrated amplifiers (or receivers in the USA) became the aspirational audio items.

Quincy Jones not only wrote fantastic catchy tunes, he also wrote arrangements with incredible clarity which he then recorded with polished gloss. Quincy started an extraordinary musical career as a trumpeter with Lionel Hampton, the Dorseys and as trumpeter and musical director with Dizzy Gillespie. Your Old Scribe grew up listening to his Dad's collection of these artists and there is a distinct clarity of their arrangements and recordings. Quincy worked on the collaborations between Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. Quincy worked for Mercury Records whose sound quality is legendary. Quincy composed and produced numerous movie soundtracks. This capacity to think about how music will be heard is a rare talent and should be profoundly influential to audiophiles.

Quincy Jones moved with the times, becoming a pop producer for each generation. Michael Jackson probably owed as much to Jones's talent as to his own for his solo career. Thriller remains the best selling album of all time and might also be seen as a benchmark for 80s production values.

Many hi-fi enthusiasts whose audio begins in the 80s and 90s would've been attempting to achieve this clean window onto the recording. Quincy understood the groove to be key to a successful record, stating that if you get the groove the money will follow. Quincy Jones received 28 Grammys, 7 Oscar nominations and numerous other awards testify to his influence. Hence Quincy Jones may well have been influential in the shift to smaller loudspeakers and an emphasis on PRaT. Leaner bass alignments sound funkier. The prog and reggae fans might think speaker first to spend on big floorstanders but the fans of 80s and 90s production values favoured small standmount speakers with simple crossovers. The evidence for this is in the choice of tracks used for reviewing by the journalists in each camp.

The Music and Social Activism

Quincy Jones's name may have been artist, producer, composer or engineer on the sleeve of many a 78, LP or CD. His contribution to the sound of hi-fi is explicit, from the 50s to the present day. He was also a social activist.

Quincy Jones supported of Martin Luther King Jr. and charities including the NAACP, GLAAD, Peace Games, AmfAR, the Maybach Foundation and was one of the founders of the Institute for Black American Music (IBAM). Quincy founded the Quincy Jones Workshops in LA to educate and develop musicianship, acting, and songwriting skills of young people in the inner-city. He also founded the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation that built more than 100 homes in South Africa and which aims to connect young people with technology, education, culture, and music and helped launch the We Are the Future (WAF) project. Jones was a spokesperson for the Global Down Syndrome Foundation and was also involved in the Linda Crnic Institute, improving the lives of people with down syndrome.

It was Quincy Jones who corralled the 46 musicians in 1985, including Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner and Cyndi Lauper, to "leave their egos at the door" and record We Are the World. So in a way it is rather disappointing that most articles describe Quincy Jones as "best known as the producer of Michael Jackson's Thriller" album. Quincy Jones was also instrumental in changing the aesthetic of popular music, and in turn therefore of the sound of audio systems.

The Music and The Rex Foundation

Phil Lesh, however, also has a hidden contribution to the world of music beyond his own. Through the Rex Foundation, the face of British classical music has also been profoundly influenced. By supporting new composers, the Rex Foundation has changed the face of the famous Albert Hall BBC Proms Season for example. Lesh had never formally learned bass before joining the Grateful Dead and said that his playing style was influenced more by Bach's counterpoint than by typical rock or soul bass players. His classical roots also influenced what he chose to do after the Dead diverged to various solo projects.

Lesh's interest in jazz and classical avant-garde music remained throughout the Dead's career and was a crucial influence on the group. Lesh was passionate about 20th century British composers. These included Havergal Brian, Robert Simpson, Bernard Stevens and one American, Elliott Carter. Phil Lesh and the other Grateful Dead members set up the Rex Foundation which supported all these composers. The Rex Foundation also supported Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 - 18 April 2022) who came to fame outside classical circles some years later when his 1995 saxophone concerto Panic at the BBC Last Night of the Proms causing what newspapers claimed was national notoriety.

The Rex Foundation always operated as a mysterious source of largesse, funding a spate of recordings by several obscure composers, some of them already dead and almost forgotten. Rex posed as an anonymous Californian donor, intervening and resuscitating lost reputations, which enabled fresh creativity and restored the positions of British music in the UK and abroad. Eventually the Rex Foundation was tracked down to Phil Lesh. He diverted $100,000 from the group's charitable foundation into concert-hall scores that no promoter would back. Lesh was determined that creation of new symphonic works would continue beyond the 20th century.

The catalyst for this unlikely benefaction is the music of Havergal Brian (1876-1972). Staffordshire born (your Old Scribe lived in Staffs for 18 years) Brian wrote his last 7 symphonies in his 90s, but sadly they were virtually unplayed. His 'Gothic' symphony earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest symphony ever written, comprising a double orchestra of 200 players, four vast choirs and several soloists. The Gothic Symphony was last performed on his 90th birthday in 1966 and estimates for a proposed recording came close to $1 million. It was the Gothic Symphony first noticed by Phil Lesh. "I heard about this huge piece, which existed only on a bootleg tape of Boult's 1966 performance that was going around California. I was amazed by the 'Judex' movement and its polytonal clusters. It was, 'Wow, listen to that!' I decided this neglected music just had to be brought to the world's attention."

The Rex Foundation had previously only dealt with environmental concerns like the rain forests or human needs like cancer clinics and senior-citizen homes. Two bank checks for $10,000 helped put four Brian symphonies on EMI/Angel and Hyperion records which started a Haverhal Brian revival. Klaus Heymann, a German entrepreneur in Hong Kong, spotted the sudden rise in Brian's appeal and taped the Gothic Symphony work on a modest $100,000 budget in Bratislava. This unique recording of the "Gothic" soon sold 10,000 copies.

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RIP: Phil Lesh and Quincy Jones

The Music and Social Activism

The Music and The Rex Foundation

Conclusion

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