Quincy Jones | You've Got It Bad Girl

AllMusic Review by Andy Kellman  [-]

Quincy Jones followed up Smackwater Jack and his supervision of Donny Hathaway's Come Back Charleston Blue soundtrack with this, a mixed bag that saw him inching a little closer toward the R&B-dominated approach that reached full stride on the following Body Heat and peaked commercially with The Dude. That said, the album's most notorious cut is "The Streetbeater" -- better known as the Sanford & Son theme, a novelty for most but also one of the greasiest, grimiest instrumental fusions of jazz and funk ever laid down -- while its second most noteworthy component is a drastic recasting of "Summer in the City," as heard in the Pharcyde's "Passin' Me By," where the frantic, bug-eyed energy of the Lovin' Spoonful original is turned into a magnetically lazy drift driven by Eddie Louis' organ, Dave Grusin's electric piano, and Valerie Simpson's voice. (Simpson gives the song a "Summertime"-like treatment.) Between that, the title song (a faithfully mellow version, with Jones' limited but subdued vocal lead), a medley of Aretha Franklin's "Daydreaming" and Ewan MacColl's "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," and a light instrumental, roughly half the album is mood music, and it's offset with not just "The Streetbeater" but a large-scale take on "Manteca," a spooky-then-overstuffed "Superstition" (where the uncredited Billy Preston, Bill Withers, and Stevie Wonder are billed as "three beautiful brothers"), and the "Streetbeater" companion "Chump Change" (co-written with Bill Cosby). The best here can be had on comps, but the album is by no means disposable. [Given a straight reissue in early 2009 via Verve's Originals series.]

Quincy Jones
You've Got It Bad Girl 
A&M Records 1973

A1 Summer in the City (J. Sebastian, M. Sebastian & St. Boone) A2 Eyes Of Love (B. Russell & Q. Jones) 4:07 A3 Daydreaming/First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Franklin/MacColl) 7:38 A4 Love Theme From 'The Getaway' 14:54 A5 You've Got It Bad Girl (Yvonne Wright) 17:33 B1 Superstition (Stevie Wonder) 23:22 B2 Manteca (Gillespie & Fuller) 27:55 B3 'Sanford & Son Theme' (Cosby & Jones) 36:37 B4 Chump Change (Cosby/Jones) 39:45

Solists: Quincy Jones (arr, con, tp, voc) Valerie Simpson (voc) A3 Three Beautiful Brothers (voc, har) B1 Phil Woods (as) A3, B1, B3 Jerome Richardson (ss) B2 Ernie Watts (es) B3 Cat Anderson (tp) B2 Hubert Laws (fl) A3 "Toots" Thielmans (har) A2, A4, B4 Tom Morgan (har) B3 George Duke (ep) A5 Dave Grusin (ep) A1 Bob James (ep) B2 Eddy Louiss (og) A1 Dennis Budimir (g) A5, B2 Carole Kaye, Chuck Rainey (e-b) Ray Brown (b) Grady Tate (dr) Bobby Porter (perc)