"I feel like I'm just starting," Quincy Jones explains as he slowly takes a seat in the grand living room of his hilltop Bel-Air mansion, a wide arc of nighttime Los Angeles visible through the windows in front of him. "It seems like at 84 all the things you used to wonder about come clear to you."

So he begins. He begins talking about his life. It's a life punctuated by so many disparate encounters and achievements and circumstances that it is hard to believe they are the experiences of a single man. There is a lot of talking to do.

There is the career, of course: the jazz musician, the arranger, the record executive, the soundtrack composer, the solo artist, the producer of the biggest pop album in history, the entrepreneur, the media magnate, the film and TV producer, the philanthropist…and on and on. Jones is one of just a handful of people who have accomplished the EGOT—winner of at least one Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. (1) But these seem almost trivial and incidental alongside the actual life he's lived.

For one thing, he seems to know, or have known, everybody. When Jones says that he "lost 66 friends last year" and begins to list recent departures—"David Bowie, George Martin…"—it's more than an acknowledgment of some recent rough years. It's also a testament to his unique gift for not just knowing people but also sharing unforgettable moments with them. Someone once compared his omnipresence to Forrest Gump's; Jones has heard this one, but he prefers a further twist on it: "the Ghetto Gump."

He worries often that he'll say too much ("I always get in trouble, you know. My daughter Kidada calls me LL QJ—Loose Lips"), but it doesn't really seem to stem the flow. And because each sentence from his mouth comes out sounding like a benediction, it takes a while to register that the word the 84-year-old Quincy Jones uses more than any other, as a term of both endearment and opprobrium, is motherfucker. In fact, he will say it in my presence 89 times.

Mostly we talk about the past, naturally, and we get there soon enough. But it's characteristic of his spirit that as he sits down he is already telling me about his present and his future: "I never been this busy in my life. We're doing ten movies, six albums, four Broadway shows, two networks, business with the president of China, intellectual property. It's unbelievable, man." He tells me about all the celebrations planned for his 85th year: a Netflix documentary, a prospective ten-part TV biopic he hopes will star Donald Glover, a star-studded TV event on CBS that he tells me Oprah will host.

I guess you're supposed to be the one to slow it down.

"Never. 'Cause I don't think like that.…I stopped drinking two years ago. Because I had diabetes 2. And it's the best thing I ever did. My mind's so clear now, you know. And the curiosity's at an all-time high."

Do you wish you'd done it sooner?

"Yeah, but I came up with Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra, man. (2) I didn't have a chance. Seven double Jack Daniel's an hour. Get out of here. Ray Charles, Frank—those guys could party. Sinatra and Ray Charles, them motherfuckers invented partying." Jones shows me the ring on his little finger. Sinatra, he went on, "wore that for 40 years. When he died, he left it to me. This is his family crest from Sicily."

You wear it every day?

"I can't take it off."

And you think of him?

"Yes sir. I love him. He was bipolar, you know. He had no gray. He either loved you with all of his heart or else he'd roll over your ass in a Mack truck in reverse. He was tough, man. I saw all of it. You know, I'd see him try to fight—he couldn't fight worth a shit. He'd get drunk, and Jilly, his right-hand guy, stone gangster, would get behind him and break the guy's ribs. Man. What memories. We had a good time, though. We'd do one-nighters, I'd fly with him on his Learjet, he said, 'Let's get on the plane before Basie's drummer's cymbal stops ringing.…' Six Playboy bunnies on that."

Should I ask what happened next?

"No. It was fun, man. Always been fun. You gotta enjoy life."

You and Frank Sinatra had the first song played on the moon, didn't you? (3)

"Yeah, 1969. Buzz Aldrin. Frank knew first and he called me up, and he was like a little kid: 'We got the first music on the moon, man!' He said, 'We're putting it back in the show!'" (4)

I believe he made you scrambled eggs once?

"Yeah. I was in Dean Martin's studio at the Warner Bros. lot, writing music for Sinatra at the Sands, and I got locked in for the weekend. He came in on Monday morning, said, 'Hey, Q, how do you like your eggs?' Miles (5) said the same thing, on a different occasion, at the Chateau Marmont. But that was just a coincidence." He smiles. "They say coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."

And how were the Miles Davis eggs?

"Good. Both of them were fantastic. Frank could cook, man. His pasta—shit!"

Is it true that you can cook the best lemon-meringue pie?

"Right. You put some lime in the meringue. I love to cook, man. To me, it's like orchestration. Like, what's the most prominent instrument in the symphony orchestra? The one that you always hear? Piccolo. And when I cook, I cook like an orchestrator. Lemon rules, man. Lemon knocks out hot sauce, garlic, onions, everything. Shit, I've got some great dishes, man. I cook gumbo that'll make you slap your grandmother. Oprah (6) had my Thriller (7) ribs on the show four times."

Why are they called Thriller ribs?

He shrugs amiably. "Oprah dramatizes everything."