TV Host Discusses His Constant Friendship with Music Industry Legend Quincy Jones

This week on “White House Chronicle,” Co-host Adam Clayton Powell III talks about the Quincy Jones he knew.

WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, May 20, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In this week’s episode of “White House Chronicle,” the weekly news and public affairs program on PBS, Co-host Adam Clayton Powell III reminisces about his constant friend, music industry titan Quincy Jones. The episode will begin airing on May 22.

Powell, who is interviewed by the program’s host, Llewellyn King, begins by talking about how at 12, in his mother’s Paris apartment, he and Jones used to play checkers. His mother was the multi-talented, celebrated entertainer Hazel Scott. He says, “We would sit on the floor, play checkers and discuss Werner Heisenberg,” one of the main pioneers of quantum mechanics.

“He was particularly fascinated with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle,” adds Powell, who would later attend and graduate from MIT.

Powell recounts how in 1990, a chance meeting at the premiere of a documentary about Jones at Lincoln Center, lead to his becoming executive producer at Quincy Jones Entertainment. By then, Powell had worked in television and radio, and his surprise hiring fit a Jones pattern.

“Despite not seeing each other since the 1950s in Paris, and despite his financial success, he valued long-term friendship and loyalty above all else,” Powell says.

In the episode, Powell talks about the thrill of working at Quincy Jones Entertainment, including his rescue of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s struggling talk show, which eventually ran on CNN, and business travels with Jones.

Powell and Jones traveled to London to meet with Nelson Mandela, who had just been released from prison in South Africa. Powell, who now travels frequently to Africa in his capacity at the University of Southern California, says Jones knew South Africa would open up, and “he wanted me to be ready with contracts for musicians, artists and media companies.”

Powell’s memory bank is rich with examples of Jones’ personality, his way of working, his passions, and he opens it fully for TV viewers and listeners on SiriusXM Radio.

Jones died on Nov. 3, 2024, age 91, in Bel Air, California. Powell talks about their last collaboration which was a celebration of one of Jones’ abiding interests: jazz as an instrument of diplomacy.

“Journalists are often asked, ‘Who are some of the most interesting people you have met?’ My usual list includes Margaret Thatcher, Peter Drucker, Edward Teller, and Stockard Channing. But my co-host, Adam, is in that company. A man who has had an extraordinary career across the journalistic spectrum and beyond," King says.

“White House Chronicle” can be seen on select PBS and public, educational and government cable access channels, and heard on SiriusXM Radio’s P.O.T.U.S., Channel 124. Its PBS presenting station is Howard University Television (WHUT), Channel 32, in Washington, D.C.

Llewellyn King
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