Quincy Jones' "I Heard That!"

How does a producer mix different instruments together? I'm listening to Quincy Jones' "I Heard That!" album, and am thinking of a famous advertisement: Quincy standing on the back side of a mixing board, resting each elbow on an Auratone SuperSoundCube 5C. These are legendary and awful speakers, almost built to sound like a car stereo or other consumer product. They're just one 4"(?) speaker in a sealed enclosure. When used in the studio, Auratones provide a reference for like nothing else. How this happens is a wonderful mystery I'm not out to discover. I do hear-- on tracks like "Never Gonna Lose This Heaven"-- a wonderfully sparse soundscape. The drums are mild, paced, and sound present in only the highest highs. The bass drives, but does not grumble, the band through progressions, and all else is gloss: horns and horn pops, smooth vocals built of plate verb and sultry women, flutes, and the quietest vibes imaginable. Each track reminds me of Deodato, the keyboard master of the classic-rock-variation-opus. Nothing on this Quincy Jones record feels as inspired, or at least reverent: I could have a party to these riffs, as the synth solos give way to guitar, and the guitar gives way to a vocal tag line or harmonica whirling. Deodato's second album is as spiritual as a prayer service; his version of "Rhapsody in Blue" is transformative.
There's something poetic about these huge mixes-- horn charts, smooth vocal yelling, drum fills and so many fragments of jazz besides-- being piped into perhaps small, effective studio speakers to get mixed together. Perhaps our ears (and our senses?) are simpler than we let ourselves believe.