Ben Fong-Torres - Ben Fong-Torres has published six books including his best-selling memoirs, The Rice Room: Growing Up Chinese American, his first collection of articles from his years at Rolling Stone, Not Fade Away and his latest, a second collection, Becoming Almost Famous.
He is also a broadcaster and the radio columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.
Brian Gruber - Brian Gruber is Founder and Executive Chairman of FORA.tv.
Gruber has twenty years experience successfully building and marketing media enterprises. As the senior marketing officer for a range of respected media institutions, he has managed billion dollar revenue budgets and large and small marketing teams.
As the first marketing director for C-SPAN, he built its affiliate sales and marketing organization, launching C-SPAN II with the largest subscriber base ever for a cable network at launch. As director of marketing for News Corp's FOXTEL, he helped build the cable television brand in Australia, going from number three to number one in cable subscriptions, brand equity and consumer awareness.
As the head of marketing of the largest urban divisions of 3 top ten cable companies (MSO's), he turned flat or negative subscriber growth into substantial gains. And as president of g/media and Principals.com, he has helped more than twenty new media companies develop brands, marketing strategies, and consumer products.
He also acted as the media adviser and new media producer for the World Affairs Council of Northern California, the nation's most prolific presenter of quality world affairs events.
Quincy Jones - Quincy Jones was born on March 14, 1933, in Chicago and raised in Seattle. His interest in music began as a child and by the age of 12 he was singing in a gospel quartet.
As a junior in high school Jones began playing the trumpet and continued his musical education at the prestigious Berkelee College of Music in Boston. His professional career blossomed with an offer to tour with Lionel Hampton's band as a trumpeter, arranger and sometime-pianist.
By the mid 1950's Jones had moved to New York where he began arranging and recording for such diverse artists as Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington and Cannonball Adderly. In 1957 Jones decided to continue his musical education in Europe with Nadia Boulanger, the legendary Parisian tutor of composers Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copeland. He landed a job with Mercury Record's French distributor, Barclay Disques, where he recorded artists such as Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, Henri Salvador, Billy Eckstine and Andy Williams. His love affair with European audiences continues through today as co-producer of the annual Montreux Jazz and World Music Festival.
In 1961 Quincy became the vice-president of Mercury Records and the first high level black executive of an established major record company. Two years later he won his first Grammy Award for his Count Basie arrangement of "I Can't Stop Loving You." In his three year association as arranger and conductor for Frank Sinatra, Quincy, once again teamed with Count Basie, made history with his unforgettable arrangement of "Fly Me To The Moon;" the first recording played by Buzz Aldrin when he landed upon the moon's surface in 1969.
Expanding his career Quincy began scoring music for films, such as "The Pawnbroker", "In the Heat of the Night", "In Cold Blood" and "The Wiz", just to name a few of the 33 major motion picture scores to his credit. His equally numerous television scores include "The Bill Cosby Show", "Ironside", "Sanford and Son", and "Roots", for which he won an Emmy Award.
Together with Steven Spielberg he co-produced the adaptation of Alice Walker's "The Color Purple", winning eleven Oscar nominations and introducing Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg to the movie audience. This marked Quincy's debut as a film producer.
Of his many landmarks is his production of "We Are The World", in 1985, whose proceeds went to the famine in Africa and became the best selling single of all time, as well as Michael Jackson's, "Thriller"; the best selling album in the history of the recording industry.
Quincy Jones is the all-time most nominated Grammy artist with a total of 77 nominations and 26 winning Grammys. He has won an Emmy, seven Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and The Grammy Living Legend Award. He is also the recipient of honorary doctorates from Howard University, the Berkelee College of Music, Seattle University, Wesleyan University, Brandeis University, Loyola University (New Orleans), Clark Atlanta University, Claremont University's Graduate School, the University of Connecticut, Harvard University, Tuskeegee University, New York University, University of Miami and The American Film Institute.
In 1990, his life and career were chronicled in the critically acclaimed Warner Bros. Film, "Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones", produced by Courtney Sale Ross, a film which helped illuminate not only Quincy's life and spirit, but also revealed much about the development of the African American musical tradition. Reflecting on the changes in pop music over the years, Quincy says, "If there are any common denominators, they are spirit and musicality. I go for the music that gives me goose bumps, music that touches my heart and my soul."
As a composer, producer, arranger, impresario, musician, performer and philanthropist, Quincy Jones has risen to the top of American music in the past seven decades.
Born in Chicago, the Jones family moved to Seattle, Washington when Quincy was 10. The city, and the diversity of young musicians Jones would meet as a teenager there - Ray Charles, Buddy Catlett, Ernestine Anderson, had a lasting impact on his musical career.
Quincy Jones began playing the trumpet in elementary school, and at 18 won a trumpet scholarship to the Schillinger House of Music (now Berklee College of Music) in Boston. In 1951, Jones left Boston to join bandleader Lionel Hampton on tour, and by 1956 had become the musical director and trumpeter for the Dizzy Gillespie Band.
Since then Jones has built a dynamic, varied music career whose highlights include arranging for Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and Dinah Washington, composing 33 major motion picture scores, producing Michael Jackson's groundbreaking Thriller album, and producing the popular NBC show The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Jones' numerous collaborations include work with Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Steven Spielberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Miles Davis.
The recipient of 27 Grammy Awards, Quincy Jones has been nominated a record 79 times. Since the 1960s, Quincy Jones has been both activist and humanitarian. He founded the Institute for Black American Music, the Black Arts Festival in Chicago, and the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, an international charity that serves young people through education and the arts.
The latest book about Jones, The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey and Passions, will be published in October 2008- City Arts & Lectures
