This fall, music icon Quincy Jones is set to launch the world’s first-ever video-on-demand service dedicated to jazz music and jazz-inspired music forms. It’ll explore jazz from “Billie Holiday to Esperanza SpaldingSun Ra to Kamasi WashingtonBill Evans to Flying Lotus, and Ravi Shankar’s soaring sitar solos to the traditions of Cuban Santería.”

Photo: Billboard
Photo: Billboard

It’s in collaboration with television producer Reza Ackbaraly.

Subscribers will be able to choose when and where to watch a personalized, hand-picked selection of exclusive, original content including concerts, documentaries, interviews and archival footage on their mobile devices and computers in HD or 4K for a monthly fee starting at $7.49.

A Kickstarter campaign will begin in September, in which people can get “pre-launch subscriptions.” The first 1,500 will be “co-founding subscribers” and will be able to help develop the service before it starts. Co-founding subscribers will receive a full year of Qwest TV Premium, VIP access to the Qwest TV team for sharing feedback and feature requests as well as special benefits like including collectible t-shirts, posters, headphones, concert tickets, and gold, platinum and vinyl records signed by Quincy Jones himself.

“The dream of Qwest TV is to let jazz and music lovers everywhere experience these incredibly rich and diverse musical traditions in a whole new way.  At my core, I am a bebopper, and over the course of my seventy-year career in music I have witnessed firsthand the power of jazz – and all of its off-spring from the blues and R&B to pop, rock and hip-hop, to tear down walls and bring the world together.  I believe that a hundred years from now, when people look back at the 20th century, they will view Bird, Miles and Dizzy, as our Mozarts, Bachs, Chopins and Tchaikovskys, and it is my hope that Qwest TV will serve to carry forth and build on the great legacy that is jazz for many generations to come,” said Jones.