Photo: The Company celebrates the music and life of Chicago’s own Quincy Jones/Photo-Dwight Casimere
By Dwight Casimere
‘Explosive’ is the best word to use in describing the World Premiere performance of ‘Q’ After Dark by Chicago’s Deeply Rooted Dance Theater at Chicago’s landmark Auditorium Theatre. With an energized performance by the Company and its Apprentice Members, and a polished live orchestra and vocals from Sam Thousand+ Ensemble, it featured the works of multiple Grammy –winning composer and arranger Quincy Jones, who is a product of Chicago’s South Side.
Created by the company’s choreography team of Nicole Clark-Springer, Gary Abbott, Kevin lega Jeff, and Joshua L. Simon, with stellar vocals led by the orchestra’s conductor Sam Thousand with Soprano Tina Jenkins Crawley and Alto Ameerah Tatum, and Inspiration provided by Victoria Carot, the work honored Q’s 70 year musical career.
A product of Chicago’s Ida B. Wells housing development on the south side, Jones is the winner of 28 Grammy’s, including a Grammy Legend Award. He also holds a record 80 Grammy nominations.
In 1968, he became the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “The Eyes of Love” from the film “Banning. In the same year, he was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on the film In Cold Blood, making him the first African American to be nominated twice in the same year. In 1971, he became the first African American to be the musical director and conductor of the Academy Awards.
As a film producer, he received 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Film Score, for his debut production, 1985’s The Color Purple, becoming the only composer other than John Williams to write a score for a Steven Spielberg directed film.
Audiences know him from his work with Michael Jackson. He produced the singer’s most popular albums, Off The Wall in 1979, Thriller in 1982, Bad in 1987.
In 1985, he produced and conducted “We Are The World,” which raised funds worldwide for the victims of famine in Ethiopia. For his efforts, he was awarded the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, Q, who will turn 90 in March, was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time Magazine.
His roster of collaborators is a Who’s Who of 20th century music: Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughn, Diana Ross, Chaka Kahn, Aretha Franklin, to name just a few.
Q’s many hit television themes are as well known as the stars of the programs that showcased them: Sanford and Son, Ironside, The Bill Cosby Show and the opening episode of Roots.
If anyone deserves a celebration of his life and work, Q is certainly that person.
Sam Thousand set a marathon runner’s pace from the outset, with a hand-clapping, thigh slapping review of Q’s greatest hits before unleashing his powerful vocal chords on such hits as ‘Everything Must Change,’ ‘Body Heat,’ Mellow Madness,” followed by Crawley and Tatum alternating solo chores with their sylvan voices.
By the end of the night, the entire sold-out audience was on its feet, dancing in the aisles with the cast members who, by then, were getting down on the floor of the Auditorium Theatre with anyone who could ‘Shake that Thang!’
Deeply Rooted plans to move into its new home on the South Side in Washington Park, a stone’s throw from Q’s childhood roots, in 2024. To be sure, the 30,000 square foot South Side Dance Center will reverberate with the sounds of Afro-centric and African American modern dance, Hip-Hop, Jazz and R and B as the company and its students go through their ever-expanding repertoire. For more, visit deeplyrooteddancetheater.org.