Quincy Jones didn’t make music history; he was music history. That was the message that everyone could agree on at Harbourfront Centre during Luminato.

A concert was held in tribute to the late great Quincy Jones. It was organized by one our favourite Toronto musicians, a drummer named Larnell Lewis. This musician recently won a Juno for his contribution to Jeremy Ledbetter’s latest record, Gravity.

Larnell put together a stellar class of top musicians to pay tribute to a man, whose body of work is so massive that this show could have happened over the course of the entire weekend. Somehow this was all organized to be performed in two hours. Not only did we get the best of Quincy’s works, but we also had a few deep dives into his earlier recordings that may not have been well known to the public.

If you were not familiar with all his work, Ryan Chung was our host who presented plenty of historical trivia about this icon. If you felt you knew very little before, you became an expert by the end of the show. Ryan was highly engaging and kept the evening fun and light and classy. Yes, you will be reading this word a lot.

Larnell Lewis is the man who put together this team of musicians who put on one of the classiest shows I have seen in a while. His team was made up by the some of the more enlightened musicians around. We had:

Joy Lapps

Divine Brown

Kirk Diamond

Alexis Baros

Shirantha Beddage

Rob Christian

Liam Marie

Andrew McAnsh

Oh! The artist

KC Roberts

If I missed anyone, please let me know.

The first thing I would like to point out was that this concert had deaf interpreters signing the show to a certain area of the audience. I have never seen this before and I thought it was a very classy thing to add to the show.

This was a once in a lifetime concert that just took a snippet of Quincy’s career. They started in the early 1970’s with his album “The Dude” and moved into his collaborations with other artists throughout the years.

As the show went on, people began to get excited when cuts like, “100 Ways”, was crooned by Oh, the artist. The show hit new heights when Divine Brown showed up and took over the stage. I must admit, I have heard her name for some time now, but this was my first encounter with her.  It certainly won’t be my last. Her performance had me spellbound.  

There was a great story about a young girl from Windsor who worked with Quincy on one of her songs that made her a star in the industry. Her name is Tamia, and Divine performed her song. Not only did she perform it, but she also transformed it with one note. In all my years of seeing concerts, this was the longest note I have ever heard live.

Omar and Divine got together to do a duet. It was that baby making song and the smoothest feel-good track of the night. We all know it as, “Baby, come to me”.

They also spotlighted George Benson with his commercial hit, “Give me the night”. The guitarist, KC Roberts did a phenomenal job recreating that song and scat at the same time. It was so much fun to watch. They also brought on a children’s choir to pay tribute to a man who loved children. They were so cute to watch, but I couldn’t help noticing a small star emerging in the choir. This young girl was giving it her all and wanted to impress Quincy from afar. You can see her in one of my photos.

Up next was Kirk Diamond who came out strongly and demanded to know where his Caribbean people are. It turns out there were quite a number of them tonight and ready to party!

Kirk swaggered between two artist and four songs. He kept his reggae roots and did “Beat it”, while slipping into Bob Marley’s, “Iron, Lion, Zion”. He got the entire crowd dancing away in the chilly night air. Kirk really did turn up the heat because I was instantly warmer after these songs.

Kirk was really grateful for this show, because it is very rarely that these two forms of music ever get to be played together. The entire audience had to agree to that one. And that is what made this a one-of-a-kind evening.

We did finish off the evening with many different renditions of Michael Jackson songs. I wasn’t counting but it was around 7 songs. We had the reggae style; we had Joy Lapps giving us a gentler version of his songs because they were played with steel drums. The vibe was so fine and flavourful.

The night ended with that thrilling song we all love at Halloween! Omar did a soulful adaptation and that is when we got to see a thrilling drum solo from Larnell! Those are the moments I wait for when I see him live. If you don’t believe me, Blast Toronto has the video.

The Larnell Lewis band pays tribute to Quincy Jones. – YouTube

I tip my hat to Larnell Lewis for organizing such a classy show. I give full credit to everybody who walked on that stage and gave a little back to Quincy Jones. Music history was made on this night!