"It Was Freedom, Man": Quincy Jones On Helping To Start The Interracial Dating "Revolution" In The '40s

“It Was Freedom, Man”: Quincy Jones On Helping To Start The Interracial Dating “Revolution” In The ’40s - Page 10

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If you didn’t know by now, Quincy Jones is an incredible musician. He’s also a very interesting man. He made that clear in a new GQ article where he talked about a little bit of everything, including his gaggle of girlfriends from around the world. There are 22 to be exact, between the ages of 28 and 42 and from places like Cairo, Stockholm, Rio and Cape Town. As he told the publication, it all works out because he’s honest about what he’s doing.

“Yeah, I don’t lie. And it’s amazing—women get it, man,” he said. “Don’t you ever forget they’re 13 years smarter than we are. Don’t you ever forget it.”

But the stories about his love life don’t end there. In that same conversation, Jones talked about the women of his past. Jones has famously dated a wealth of white women in his time, but he told GQ that the craziest misconception is that he only gives the time of day to blondes.

“How stupid can that be, when you’re in South Africa and Cairo and Brazil and China—looking for a f–king blonde?” he said of the fallacy.

When the interviewer said they weren’t aware it was a perception of Jones, he replied, “Well, because I had three wives, white wives, and they stereotype, you know. But they wrong like a motherf–ker, man. You ever see Black Orpheus? That was my old lady, Marpessa Dawn. Gorgeous lady, man.”

From there, Jones revealed that people’s perception of him didn’t matter because a major reason behind the fact that he dates and marries white women is steeped in history. Years ago, when racial tensions were at some of their worst, the legends were bedding and wedding these women to embarrass white men.

“I don’t give a f–k. Because they think that’s all you like, but that’s stupid, man. Here’s what you’ve got to understand: The interracial thing was part of a revolution, too, because back in the ’40s and stuff, they would say, ‘You can’t mess with a white man’s money.… Don’t mess with his women,'” he said. “We weren’t going to take that sh-t. Charlie Parker, everybody there, was married to a white wife.”

Jones claimed that it provided them with a sense of liberation — even if none of those marriages worked out.

“Yeah! It was freedom, man. Do what you want to do, and nobody can tell you what to do,” he said. “Charlie…I used to go to things with Charlie Parker, man—boy, he’d have everybody smoke some weed and he’d have, like, the founders of Sears Roebuck, the ladies walking around the pool, all of them nude, man. Him playing alto, buck dancing around the pool. Them cats didn’t play.”

If you’d like a better idea of the dating habits of Jones, hit the flip to see (some of) the women, white and Black, whom Quincy Jones has dated and loved in his lifetime.