Qwest TV

Qwest TV is Quincy Jones's answer to the streaming age. Co-founded in 2017 by the legendary producer and French jazz entrepreneur Reza Ackbaraly, the platform set out to be the Netflix of jazz — and became something even better: the world's front row for the music that matters.

The partnership started with a meeting. Ackbaraly — a member of France's Charles Cros Academy, the musical programmer behind the Jazz à Vienne festival and Paris's La Petite Halle de la Villette, with years at Mezzo TV — met Jones in 2014. Over the course of that meeting, the plan took shape: a streaming home for jazz and jazz-adjacent music, built with the same obsession for quality that defined Jones's seven-decade career.

The reveal was pure showbiz. Qwest TV was officially introduced at the 51st Montreux Jazz Festival in July 2017 — the most prestigious stage in jazz — and the pre-subscription campaign launched that September at a Hollywood Bowl tribute concert for Jones himself, run through Kickstarter. The crowd funded it nearly two-to-one: roughly $170,000 against the target, from believers who wanted this thing to exist.

The launch delivered. On December 15, 2017, Qwest TV opened its doors with over a hundred curated concerts, documentaries, interviews, and archives — Aretha Franklin's 1977 Paris concert, the ten-episode series The Sound of New York, B.B. King, Anderson .Paak, Bobby McFerrin, Robert Glasper, Jacob Collier, Sun Ra, Al Jarreau, George Benson, Chick Corea, Maceo Parker, Gregory Porter, Macy Gray, Wayne Shorter, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Pharoah Sanders, Elvin Jones, Milton Nascimento, and more. Ad-free, in SD and HD/4K tiers, from $7.49 a month.

The curation is the product. Every jazz video on the platform arrives with liner notes written by a journalist specializing in the genre — context, history, and criticism baked into the viewing experience. It's the opposite of the algorithmic feed: a human being who knows the music telling you why it matters.

The catalog keeps growing. By 2020 the service had split into three channels — Qwest TV Jazz & Beyond (blues, soul, funk), Qwest TV Mix, and Qwest TV Classical, with concerts spanning the 17th to the 21st century — and the library has since grown past 1,300 HD and 4K programs, all hand-picked by artists and industry insiders.

The believers were the best names in music. Questlove, Erykah Badu, Gilles Peterson, Marcus Miller, Kamasi Washington, Chucho Valdés, Zakir Hussain — the platform's mission to grow jazz, spotlight its influence on everything from hip-hop to electronic music, and pull in the next generation had the genre's loudest champions behind it.

The distribution keeps widening. A 2020 partnership with Samsung put three Qwest channels on Samsung TV Plus — free to anyone with a post-2016 Samsung smart TV — and the platform has since launched a FAST channel on FreeCast, bringing its concerts and documentaries to hundreds of free streaming lineups. Universities have it too: the Qwest TV Collection in the Music Online library puts 150 curated titles in front of students and researchers.

The name is Jones's own history. In the 1980s he founded Qwest Records — then co-founded Qwest Broadcasting — so when the streaming service needed a name, the answer was already waiting. Qwest TV wasn't a brand exercise; it was the third act of a story Jones had been telling for decades.

Quincy Jones died in November 2024, but the platform he built carries his blueprint forward under Ackbaraly's leadership as CEO — still curating, still expanding, still insisting that the world's greatest music deserves a first-class stage.

Previously covers Qwest TV because jazz was never background music — and now it has a home that treats it like the main event.

The Hollywood Bowl moment set the tone. The September 2017 tribute concert for Jones doubled as the pre-subscription campaign's launchpad — the platform's first pitch to the world came with a full orchestra and a legend on stage. Kickstarter backers weren't buying a product; they were funding a belief.

"Jazz and beyond" is the whole thesis. The catalog doesn't stop at bop and swing — it follows jazz's DNA into hip-hop, electronic music, soul, funk, blues, and world music, with Qwest Mix dedicated to exactly that sprawl. The argument, straight from Jones: jazz conditioned him to be an open thinker, and the platform mirrors that openness.

The classical channel is no afterthought. Qwest TV Classical programs concerts from the 17th through the 21st century — symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, solo piano recitals, opera — with the same curatorial care as the jazz side. It's a serious classical library hiding inside a jazz brand.

The Samsung deal changed the economics. Putting three Qwest channels on Samsung TV Plus — free, pre-installed on every post-2016 Samsung smart TV — turned a niche subscription into ambient culture. Millions of viewers now encounter a Pharoah Sanders documentary the way they'd encounter any other channel, and that's the point: jazz, normalized.

The FAST expansion continues it. The recent FreeCast launch puts Qwest TV in hundreds of free streaming lineups, with ad-supported VOD assets joining the linear channel — the platform meeting audiences where they already are instead of asking them to come knocking.

The academic footprint is real. The Qwest TV Collection in the Music Online library — 150 curated titles adopted by university libraries like Notre Dame's — means the platform doubles as a teaching archive. Professors assign it. Students discover Sun Ra between classes.

Previously covers Qwest TV because the streaming era promised everything and delivered playlists — and this is the exception that proves the rule.