Qwest TV is honored to partner with Matt Groening, one of the most celebrated creative minds in the United States. Aside from being a 13-Emmy-winning writer, producer and animator, responsible for The Simpsons, Futurama and Disenchantment among many others, he is also an eminent music fan whose taste spans all manner of genres and cultures.
Having guest-edited the book Best Music Writing in 2003 and co-authored Hard Listening in 2013, Groening has been involved with music in many ways, including illustrating the cover of Frank Zappa’s posthumous album Frank Zappa Plays the Music of Frank Zappa: A Memorial Tribute in 1996 and curating music festivals in both the US and the UK. He also plays drums in the all-author rock and roll band, The Rock Bottom Remainders.
Whether directly related to music or not, his works often have jazz, blues and avant-garde references embedded in their DNA. Most notably The Simpsons, from the opening theme where Lisa gets kicked out of her music class whilst playing an erratic saxophone solo, to the character of Bleeding Gums Murphy, largely based on the jazz legend Sonny Rollins, whose famous hiatus on the Williamsburg Bridge is depicted in the series one episode "Moaning Lisa".
While Qwest TV’s Guest Curators are always careful to select a playlist that represents their own attachment to the world’s diverse sounds, Groening’s job felt incredibly challenging: encapsulating such a wide variety of tastes in one playlist was a daunting task.
Yet, richness and diversity are at the heart of Qwest TV’s mission and Groening is in complete alignment with that notion. His selection features rare archive footage of the likes of Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, James Brown, Charles Minugs and Count Basie; extraordinary concerts from African musicians including Miriam Makeba and Toumani Diabaté; documentaries about raga, Creole music and 1980s spoken word; classical symphonies; Cuban contemporary dance and even the avant-garde hero and Viking of Sixth Avenue, Moondog.
It is the kind of list that reveals a lifetime spent chasing the world’s diverse rhythms. Though, in classic self-effacing fashion, Groening insisted that he is merely “an enthusiast.” We politely disagree.
Rowan Standish Hayes
