Quincy Jones, the multi-talented titan of music who went from producing Michael Jackson’s historic Thriller album to writing award-winning film and television scores and collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other artists, has died at the age of 91. .
Jones’ publicist Arnold Robinson says she died Sunday night at her home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, surrounded by her family.
“Tonight, with a full but broken heart, we must report to our father and brother Quincy Jones‘passing,’ the family said in a statement. ‘And while this is a terrible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life he lived and know there will never be another like him.’
Jones rose from running with Chicago’s South Side gangs to the top of show business, becoming one of the first Black directors to break through in Hollywood and amassing an extraordinary musical catalog that includes some of the richest moments in American rhythm and song. For years, it was hard to find a music fan who didn’t own at least one album with his name on it, or a leader in the entertainment industry and beyond who wasn’t connected to him.
Jones kept company with presidents and foreign leaders, movie stars and musicians, philanthropists and businessmen. He toured with Count Basie and Lionel Hampton, mastered albums for Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, composed the soundtracks for “Roots” and “In the Heat of the Night,” hosted President Bill Clinton’s first inaugural and all-star supervised the recording. We Are the World”, a 1985 African famine relief charity record.
Lionel Richie, who wrote “We Are the World” and was among its lead singers, would call Jones a “master orchestrator.”
In a career that began when records were still played on vinyl at 78 rpm, top honors probably go to his productions with Jackson: “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” were almost universal in their style and appeal. Jones’ versatility and imagination helped ignite Jackson’s explosive talents as he rose from child star to “King of Pop.” In classic songs like “Billie Jean” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” Jones and Jackson created a global soundscape with disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B and jazz and African songs. For “Thriller,” some of the most memorable touches came with Jones, who recruited Eddie Van Halen for a genre-fusing guitar solo on “Beat It” and brought in Vincent Price for a raspy voiceover on the title track.
“Thriller” sold more than 20 million copies in 1983 alone and rivals the Eagles’ “Greatest Hits 1971-1975,” among others, as the best-selling album of all time.
“If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says ‘it was the producers’ fault’; so if he does well, it should be your ‘fault,’ too,” Jones said in an interview with the Library of Congress in 2016. “Clues don’t just appear all of a sudden. The producer must have the skill, experience and ability to direct the vision to completion.’
His list of honors and awards fills 18 pages in his 2001 autobiography “Q,” including 27 Grammys at the time (now 28), an honorary Academy Award (now two) and an Emmy for “Roots.” He also received the French Legion d’Honneur, the Italian Republic’s Rudolph Valentino Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor for his contributions to American culture. He was the subject of a 1990 documentary “Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones” and a 2018 film by his daughter Rashida Jones. Her memoir made her a best-selling author.
Born in Chicago in 1933, Jones would cite the hymns his mother sang at home as the first music he could remember. But he looked back sadly at his childhood, once telling Oprah Winfrey: “There are two types of people: those who have raised parents or caregivers, and those who don’t. There is nothing in between.” Jones’ mother suffered emotional problems and was eventually institutionalized, a loss that made the world seem “senseless” to Quincy. In Chicago he spent a lot of time on the streets, with gangs, stealing and fighting.
“They nailed their hand to a fence with a fence, man,” he told the AP in 2018, showing off a scar from his childhood.
Music saved him. As a boy, he learned that a resident of Chicago had a piano and soon he was playing it constantly. His father moved to Washington state when Quincy was 10 and his world changed at a neighborhood recreation center. Jones and some friends went into the kitchen and helped bake the lemon meringue pie when Jones saw a small room nearby with a stage. There was a piano on the stage.
“I went up there, paused, looked, and then tinkled for a moment,” he wrote in his autobiography. “That’s where I started to find peace. I was 11 years old. I knew this was for me. Forever”.
Within a few years he was playing the trumpet and befriended a young blind musician named Ray Charles, who became a lifelong friend. He was gifted enough to win a scholarship to Boston’s Berklee College of Music, but dropped out when Hampton invited him to tour with his band. Jones worked as an independent composer, conductor, arranger and producer. As a teenager, he sponsored Billie Holiday. At the age of 20, he was touring with his band.
“We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving,” Jones later told Musician magazine. “That’s when I discovered that there was music, and that there was the music business. If I was to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.’
As a music director, he overcame racial barriers to become Vice President of Mercury Records in the early 60s. In 1971, he became the first black music director at the Academy Awards. The first film he produced, “The Color Purple”, received 11 Oscar nominations in 1986. (But, to his great disappointment, he does not win). In partnership with Time Warner, he founded Quincy Jones Entertainment, which included pop culture magazines Vibe and Qwest Broadcasting. The company was sold for $270 million in 1999.
“My business philosophy has always come from the same roots as my personal credo: to take talented people on their terms and treat them fairly and with respect, no matter who they are or where they come from,” Jones wrote in his autobiography. .
He was comfortable with almost every kind of American music, whether it was laying down a hard, swinging, flute-driven rhythm on Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” or opening with lustful rendition of Charles’s soulful “In the Heat of the Night.” solo tenor sax. With jazz giants (Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Duke Ellington), rappers (Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J), crooners (Sinatra, Tony Bennett), pop singers (Lesley Gore) and rhythm and blues stars (Chaka Khan, he worked with the rapper). and singer Queen Latifah).
In “We are the World” alone, Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen were among the performers. He wrote hits for Jackson – “PYT (Pretty Young Thing)” – and Donna Summer – “Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)”, and sampled songs by Tupac Shakur, Kanye West and other rappers. song for the sitcom “Sanford and Son”.
Join the brightest minds and boldest leaders in business at the Fortune Global Forum, which will convene on November 11th and 12th in New York. Thought-provoking sessions and off-the-record discussions include Fortune 500 CEOs, former cabinet members and global ambassadors, and 7-time world champion Tom Brady, among many others.
See the full agenda hereor request your invitation.
