"I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young. Every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn't have MTV, we didn't have television"
About this Quote
The repetition does the heavy lifting. “Every band… every dance, every night club… every band” mimics the grind of apprenticeship, the way a young musician learns by osmosis: stealing voicings, clocking arrangements, watching how a room changes when a horn player takes a risk. Jones frames inspiration as a physical practice tied to place - the theater, the dance hall - a local ecosystem where culture traveled in bodies and instruments, not in pixels.
Then comes the generational knife twist: “we didn’t have MTV, we didn’t have television.” It’s not just a flex about toughness; it’s a critique of mediated experience. Without screens, music wasn’t content to consume but an event you had to chase. The subtext lands on today’s frictionless abundance: when everything is available, nothing demands pilgrimage.
He’s also, slyly, defending eclecticism. If you listened to every band that came through, your taste couldn’t stay tribal. Jones’s career - jazz to pop to film scores - starts here: a kid treating the whole town like a conservatory, building range before branding existed.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: Academy of Achievement: Quincy Jones Interview (Quincy Jones, 2000)
Evidence: Quincy Jones: I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young, every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn’t have MTV, we didn’t have television.. This quote appears verbatim in the official transcript hosted by the American Academy of Achievement. The page identifies the interview as connected to the Academy’s “Grammy Legend Award” profile and gives the location/date as London, England, October 28, 2000, while also noting the transcript draws on two Academy interviews (June 3, 1995 and October 28, 2000). I did not find credible evidence (in primary/archival sources) of an earlier publication of this exact wording than the Academy of Achievement interview transcript; many quote-aggregator sites reproduce it and cite achievement.org as the source. Other candidates (1) Slaughterhouse-Five (Chapter 1) (Kurt Vonnegut, 1969) primary60.0% Song: "Slaughterhouse-Five (Chapter 1)" by Kurt Vonnegut |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Jones, Quincy. (2026, February 13). I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young. Every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn't have MTV, we didn't have television. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-inspired-by-a-lot-of-people-when-i-was-132531/
Chicago Style
Jones, Quincy. "I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young. Every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn't have MTV, we didn't have television." FixQuotes. February 13, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-inspired-by-a-lot-of-people-when-i-was-132531/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young. Every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn't have MTV, we didn't have television." FixQuotes, 13 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-inspired-by-a-lot-of-people-when-i-was-132531/. Accessed 25 Feb. 2026.
