Quincy Jones can't decide on his iPod tunes

SAN FRANCISCO — The Quincy Jones who brought you such hits as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and who has worked with Tony Bennett and Barbra Streisand, addressed technology executives Monday in an event leading up to today's start of the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment Show.

Funny and serious, Jones talked about everything from eradicating malaria in Rwanda to how the music industry is in challenging times.

He said it's hard to keep up with kids these days when they've likely never seen a black & white TV or vinyl record.

Jones, 74, moved to Bremerton when he was 10 and later to Seattle, attending Garfield High School from 1947 to 1950.

Here is an edited excerpt of an interview with him at the event.

Q: What was Garfield like when you went there?

A: Garfield to me is the personification of the best school in America when I went there. It was the most diversified school you've ever seen in your life.

If you look at the 1950 yearbook, you won't believe it. There were the richest white people, the Jewish, the Filipino, the black, everything.

It was just astounding, when I look back, I can't believe it. It was an awesome school.

Q: Have you been to Seattle recently?

A: Oh yeah, my whole family lives there. I have sisters in Portland and the rest of the family in Seattle, and one sister in Anchorage.

Q: How did you get involved in technology?

A: I've been involved in it for 30 some years with Alan Kay [who was chief scientist at Atari, the video-game company, when Jones met him], but I've always been interested in it because we had the first electronic Fender bass in 1953.

Q: You said you see similarities between jazz and technology?

A: It [technology] reminds you of music the way they talk about things — the permutation of binary numbers is very musical.

I never wanted to admit that music was so associated with mathematics, but those are the only two absolutes there are. It's the only two things that engage the right and left brain simultaneously.

Q. Do you have an iPod?

A: All over the place, but I don't know. They don't work well for me. I have 19 cellphones and so much stuff, but it can be too much decision-making to decide what to put on it.

I don't have time to go through 2,000 or 3,000 songs. Besides, there's not a whole lot to listen to. I listen to off-the-wall stuff, like Brazilian music and Cuban music.

Q: You've been doing a lot of traveling recently, like your recent trip to China. Is it easy to get along with all the cultures you encounter?

A: That's my passion. The best advice I've had in my entire life was that everywhere you go in the world, you should listen to the music the people listen to, eat the food that they eat and learn 30 to 40 words in every language.

I took it very seriously, I learned French, Greek, Swedish and others and now I'm working on Arabic now and Portuguese, and Mandarin — reading and writing, it's just curiosity — and Farsi.

Tricia Duryee: 206-464-3283 or tduryee@seattletimes.com