Killer Joe, arranged by Quincy Jones

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Here is the quintessentially cool arrangement of “Killer Joe” by Quincy Jones. Enjoy my Remix/Remaster of this 1969 jazz classic.

Background information provided by Bruce Scott:
"Killer Joe" was written by the legendary tenor sax, composer and arranger, Benny Golson. The latter and Quincy Jones are very close friends. This classic tune is from the LP entitled "Walking In Space" (A&M/CTI 3023), which was released in stereo on November 19th, 1969. "Killer Joe" was recorded on June 18th, 1969 at the Van Gelder Studios, in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Recording Engineer: Rudy Van Gelder. Produced by Creed Taylor.

“Walking in Space” is a 1969 studio album by Quincy Jones The album was recorded for A&M and features an iconic photo of Quincy by Pete Turner who made some of the most famous A&M album covers. "Killer Joe" features Ray Brown on bass and Grady Tate on drums, an early example of a strong jazz rhythm section in pop music.

I had the half-speed mastered audiophile pressing of this album. I never cared for its lopsided stereo mix, where most everything was slammed into the right channel, save the reeds and muted trumpets, which were the only thing in the left channel.

In my mix, I kept the drums in the right channel, but the swapped channels of the instruments, putting the horns, woodwinds and guitar on the left channel with the reeds and muted trumpets on the right with the drums, so it’s a much more balanced mix. I panned the female vocalists in the right channel. [It was very boring having them centered]. The bass was originally slightly right justified, so I panned it dead-center for better balance and reduced it by 10%.

It appears to have been recorded on older 1st generation transistorized solid-state equipment due to the very sterile and distorted audio quality. The original bi-polar stereo mix was most likely done on the old 4-track mastering system as well. Having been compressed for LP mastering compromised the dynamics quite a bit. I cleaned it up and expanded the dynamic range to brighten it up and bring it into the new millennium.

Personnel on this recording:
• Quincy Jones - conductor, arranger • Freddie Hubbard, Lloyd Michaels, Dick Williams, John Frosk, Marvin Stamm, Snooky Young – trumpets
• Jimmy Cleveland, J. J. Johnson, Alan Raph, Tony Studd, Norman Pride, Kai Winding – trombones
• Joel Kaye, Roland Kirk, Hubert Laws, Jerome Richardson – reeds
• Paul Griffin - piano
• Eric Gale - electric guitar
• Ray Brown - double bass
• Grady Tate – drums
• Bob James - electric piano
• Hubert Laws - flute, tenor sax
• Toots Thielemans - guitar
• Bernard Purdie - drums
• Hilda Harris, Marilyn Jackson & Maretha Stewart - vocals

Technical Information:
I used SpectraLayers PRO-7 to isolate the Vocals, Orchestra, Drums, Bass & Piano into 5 separate tracks. Adobe Audition was used for Dynamic Range recovery, Delay, Reverb, EQ, and final mixdown. NERO 2019 Platinum used to generate the final video.