Quincy met Michael in 1978
“I was working on the soundtrack to Sidney Lumet’s film The Wiz,” the producer Quincy Jones recalled. “Michael was there and he said: ‘I got a deal to record a solo album, will you help me find a producer?’ I told him: ‘Michael, I don’t know what you are talking about because I only have one song for this film. I have to work on this first.’”
While recording the soundtrack, Jones first experienced Jackson’s trademark determination; the then 20-year-old Jackson memorising all the soundtrack’s lyrics and associated dance steps.
“I knew we had to work together,” Jones said. “The record label said no to us working together because they said ‘Quincy was too jazzy’. We went on to record Off the Wall and that became the highest-selling black record of all time at that period.”
On Jackson’s singing style
“He always sat on top of the beat and really pushed it along and gave it a lot of melody,” described the British songwriter Rod Temperton, responsible for penning classic tunes including Rock with You, Off the Wall and Thriller. “Writing for him, I knew he loved songs with a strong melody with a lot of short notes in it. The other thing I noticed about Michael is that he loved a lot of vocal harmonies on the song, so that was something I included. I always tried to make the words melt into the melody.”
Acusonic Recording
“Some people thought that it was an actual device and one guy from Japan wanted to buy it,” said the assistant producer Bruce Swedien about the famed Acusonic Recording Process used to record the albums. “It actually means accurate sonic recording, which is what Quincy and I do all the time.”
Swedien says he incorporated a lot of sonic techniques to give the three albums a cutting-edge feel: “Sometimes I would have Michael sing close to the mic and double [track] it and then tell him to move back further and the third time even further. What that does is create a sonic energy with the sound and then you can stagger it, making the sounds come from the left [speaker], the right and the middle. When it all combines together on the record, it just sounds magical.”
Thriller was called Starlight
The aim with Thriller was to be Jackson’s “mature” album: “The transition from Off the Wall to Thriller was to say that he has moved from being a youth to man,” Jones said.
This explained the adult themes in the lyrics and the more aggressive sounds. After completing the melodies, it took a while for Temperton to come up with the appropriate the lyrics to match the song’s drama. “I never write lyrics until the very end,” Temperton said. “So Thriller was actually called Starlight and that was just some rubbish word I put down to demonstrate to Michael how the melody went. Then during breakfast the next morning, the word shot into my head. It was like electricity and immediately I started thinking of the lyrics. That’s how Thriller came to be.”
Michael the songwriter
When it came to the last of their collaborations, Bad, Jones pushed Jackson to take the songwriting reigns. “He wrote two and half [songs] in Off the Wall, four in Thriller. And when it came to Bad, I told him it’s time to go against all the publicity and walk into the eye of the fire and tell the truth about everything.
“He eventually wrote nine songs for Bad. The album had five No 1 records.”
Jackson’s legacy
“There was no one like him,” Jones said. “He focused on everything he did and he would never give up. I have never seen anyone like him.”
Temperton believes Jackson’s personality was largely responsible for the magic on the albums. “All the inspiration was driven by Michael,” said Temperton. “He was a very quiet man off the stage but once that tape rolls, you realise no one has that electric energy that he had.”
• Dubai Music Week continues until Sunday. Go to Arts&Life’s Scene&Heard blog for all the conference and concert action
sasaeed@thenational.ae
Other promotions
- Deliveroo will team up with Pineapple Express to offer customers near JLT a special treat: free banana caramel dessert with all orders on January 26
- Jones the Grocer will have their limited edition Australia Day menu available until the end of the month (January 31)
- Australian Vet in Abu Dhabi (with locations in Khalifa City A and Reem Island) will have a 15 per cent off all store items (excluding medications)
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
