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From producing Michael Jackson’s historic album Thriller to award-winning film and television music composition to collaborations with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, and hundreds of other recording artists, he has a vast legacy. Quincy Jones, a multi-talented musical giant, has died at the age of 91. .
Jones’ publicist Arnold Robinson said he died Sunday night at his home in Los Angeles’ Bel Air neighborhood, surrounded by his family.
“Tonight, with a heavy heart, we must share the news of the passing of our father and brother, Quincy Jones,” the family said in a statement. He is alive and knows that there is no one else like him. ”
Jones rose from working with gangsters on Chicago’s South Side to the pinnacle of show business, becoming one of the first black executives to succeed in Hollywood and creating an extraordinary music that includes some of the richest moments of American rhythm and song. Accumulated catalogs. For years, it was rare to find a music lover who didn’t own at least one record with his name on it, or a leader in the entertainment or other industries who didn’t have some connection to him.
Jones continued to associate with presidents, foreign leaders, movie stars, musicians, philanthropists, and business leaders. He toured with Count Basie and Lionel Hampton, arranged records for Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, composed the soundtracks for “Roots” and “In the Heat of the Night,” and worked with Bill・Planned President Clinton’s first inaugural celebration and oversaw the all-star recording of “”. “We Are the World” is a 1985 record of philanthropy for famine relief in Africa.
Lionel Richie, who co-wrote “We Are the World” and was one of the featured singers, called Jones a “master orchestrator.”
In a career that began when records were still being played on vinyl at 78 rpm, the highest honor probably goes to his work with Jackson. Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad were albums that were nearly universal in style and appeal. Jones’ versatility and imagination fueled Jackson’s explosive talent, transforming him from child star to “King of Pop.” With classic songs like “Billie Jean” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” Jones and Jackson explore global sounds from disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B, jazz, and African chants. I created a scape. On “Thriller,” some of the most memorable touches come from Jones, who enlists Eddie Van Halen for the guitar solo on the genre-blending “Beat It” and on the title track. Vincent Price was hired to provide the brutal narration.
“Thriller” sold over 20 million copies in 1983 alone, competing with the Eagles’ “Greatest Hits 1971-1975” for the best-selling album of all time.
“If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says, ‘It’s the producer’s fault.’ So if it did well, it should be your fault as well,” Jones told the Library of Congress in 2016. said in an interview. A producer must have the skills, experience, and ability to bring a vision to completion. ”
His list of awards and awards spans 18 pages in his 2001 autobiography, Q, and includes 27 Grammy Awards at the time (now 28), prestigious Academy Awards (now 2), Includes an Emmy Award for “Roots.” He also received France’s Légion d’Honneur, the Rudolph Valentino Award from the Italian Republic, and an award from the Kennedy Center for Contributions to American Culture. He was the subject of the 1990 documentary Listen Up: The Life of Quincy Jones and a 2018 film by his daughter Rashida Jones. His memoir made him a best-selling author.
Born in Chicago in 1933, Jones cites the hymns his mother sang around the house as the first music he remembers. But he looked back on his childhood with sadness, once telling Oprah Winfrey: There’s nothing in between. ” Jones’ mother had emotional problems and was eventually institutionalized, but the loss made the world seem “meaningless” to Quincy. He spent much of his time on the streets in Chicago, stealing and fighting with gangs.
“They nailed my hand to the fence with a switchblade,” he told The Associated Press in 2018, displaying childhood scars.
Music saved him. As a boy, he learned that a neighbor in Chicago owned a piano, and soon he was playing it himself. When Quincy was 10 years old, his father moved to Washington state and a local recreation center changed his world. Jones and some friends broke into the kitchen and were making lemon meringue pie when Jones noticed a small room with a stage nearby. There was a piano on the stage.
“I went up there, stopped, looked, and just stared at it for a while,” he wrote in his autobiography. “That’s when I started finding peace. I was 11 years old and I thought, this is it 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 talented enough to win a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out when Hampton asked him to tour with his band. Jones continued to work as a freelance composer, conductor, arranger, and producer. As a teenager, he supported Billie Holiday. By his mid-20s, he was touring with his own band.
“We had the best jazz band on the planet, and we were literally starving,” Jones later told Musician magazine. “That’s when I discovered that there is music and there is a music business. If I survive, I have to learn the difference between the two.”
As a music executive, he overcame racial barriers by becoming vice president of Mercury Records in the early ’60s. In 1971, he became the first black music director for the Academy Awards. The first film he produced, The Color Purple, was nominated for 11 Oscars in 1986 (but, much to our dismay, it did not win). In partnership with Time Warner, he founded Quincy Jones Entertainment, which includes the pop culture magazines Vibe and Quest Broadcasting. The company was sold in 1999 for $270 million.
“My philosophy as a businessman has always come from the same roots as my personal beliefs, which is to hire talent at your own discretion and understand who they are and where they come from. “It means treating them fairly and with respect, regardless of their circumstances,” Jones wrote in his autobiography. .
He paired Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” with punchy, swinging rhythms and wistful flutes, and Charles’ soulful “In the Heat of the Night.” He was familiar with virtually every form of American music, often opening with a glossy sound. tenor saxophone solo. He is a member of jazz giants (Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Duke Ellington), rappers (Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J), crooners (Sinatra, Tony Bennett), pop singers (Leslie Gore), And I worked with a rhythm and blues star (rapper Chaka Khan). and singer Queen Latifah).
“We Are the World” alone features appearances by Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and more. He co-wrote the hits Jackson’s “PYT (Pretty Young Thing)” and Donna Summer’s “Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger),” and wrote songs for Tupac Shakur, Kanye West, and other rappers. I had them sample it. Theme song for the sitcom “Sanford and Son.”
Jones was a star organizer and maker. He gave Will Smith his big break on the popular TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” produced by Jones, and introduced Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg to movie fans through “The Color Purple.” did. Since the 1960s, he has composed more than 35 film scores, including “The Pawnshop,” “In the Heat of the Night,” and “In Cold Blood.”
He called scoring “a multifaceted process, an abstract combination of science and soul.”
Jones’ work on the soundtrack for “The Wiz” led to a partnership with Jackson, who starred in the 1978 film. In an essay published in Time magazine in 2009 after Jackson’s death, Jones recalled that Jackson kept slips of paper containing the famous thinker’s thoughts. When Jones asked about the origin of a certain passage, Jackson replied, “Socrates,” but pronounced it “So-crates.” Jones corrected him, “Michael, that’s Socklerty.”
“And I saw the look he gave me at that moment and I said, ‘Because I was impressed by everything I saw in him during the rehearsal process. ‘I’d love to see you.’ I’d like to try my hand at producing an album.’” Jones recalled. “And he went back and told the people at Epic Records, and they said, ‘No way, Quincy is too jazzy.'” Michael persisted, going back with his manager and saying, “The album was produced by Quincy.” “I will.” And we went ahead with the production of “Off the Wall.” Ironically, this was one of the best-selling albums for black people at the time, and it saved all the jobs of the people who were saying I was the wrong guy. That’s how it works. ”
Tensions arose after Jackson’s death. In 2013, Jones sued Jackson’s estate, claiming he was owed millions of dollars in royalties and production costs for some of Jackson’s greatest hits. In a 2018 interview with New York Magazine, he called Jackson “like a Machiavellian” and claimed he plagiarized material from others.
Jones was obsessed with work and play, and sometimes suffered for it. He nearly died of a brain aneurysm in 1974 and fell into a deep depression in the 1980s after The Color Purple was ignored by Academy Awards voters. He has never won a competitive Oscar. Jones, a mother of five and father of seven, described herself as a “dog” and as having countless lovers around the world. He was married three times, and his wives included actor Peggy Lipton.
“For me, loving a woman is one of the most natural, blissful, life-enhancing acts in the world, and dare I say, a religious act,” he writes.
He was not an activist in his youth, but changed after attending the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral in 1968 and later becoming friends with the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Jones is passionate about philanthropy, saying, “The single most beneficial aspect of fame and celebrity is having a platform to help others.”
His work included fighting HIV and AIDS, educating children, and helping the poor around the world. He founded Quincy Jones Listen Up! A foundation that connects young people with music, culture and technology, he said he had been driven “by a sense of adventure and a criminal level of optimism” throughout his life.
“Life is like a dream, said the Spanish poet and philosopher Federico García Lorca,” Jones wrote in his memoir. “Mine was Technicolor with full Dolby sound through THX amplification even before they knew what these systems were.”
In addition to Rashida, Jones is survived by daughters Jolie Jones Levine, Rachel Jones, Martina Jones, Kidada Jones, and Kenya Kinski Jones; son Quincy Jones III; brother Richard Jones and sisters Theresa Frank and Margie Jay.
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AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton and former AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen contributed to this report from Los Angeles.
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