Quincy Jones, known as “Q,” was a major influence on American music, working with artists from Count Basie to Frank Sinatra, and transforming pop music alongside Michael Jackson. He passed away on Sunday at the age of 91, according to his publicist.
With a remarkable career spanning over 65 years, Jones excelled in various roles, including trumpeter, bandleader, arranger, composer, producer, and he won 27 Grammy Awards throughout his lifetime.
He was a dedicated studio professional, skilled at managing the egos of many artists, and played a key role in the music of jazz legends like Miles Davis. He produced Sinatra’s hits and gathered a superstar cast for the 1985 charity song “We Are the World,” which became the biggest hit of its time.
In addition to his music work, Jones wrote numerous film scores and co-produced the acclaimed movie The Color Purple, as well as the popular 1990s TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which helped launch Will Smith’s career.
Jones mingled with some of the most famous people of the 20th century, dining with Pablo Picasso, meeting Pope John Paul II, and helping Nelson Mandela celebrate his 90th birthday. He once spent time on Marlon Brando’s private island to recover from a personal breakdown.
Everything Jones did was marked by his cool and stylish vibe. U2’s lead singer Bono even referred to him as “the coolest person I’ve ever met.”
His most significant achievements were in collaboration with Michael Jackson. Together, they created three groundbreaking albums: Off the Wall in 1979, Thriller in 1982, and Bad in 1987. These albums changed the face of American pop music, with Thriller selling around 70 million copies and producing six top 10 singles.
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born on March 14, 1933, in Chicago. As a child, he dreamed of being a gangster like those in his tough neighborhood. His mother was taken to a mental institution when he was seven, and his father remarried, moving the family to Bremerton, Washington, where young Quincy began a life of petty crime.
Jones’ love for music blossomed in Bremerton when he and friends found a piano after sneaking into their community center in a segregated housing project. He tried different instruments in the school band before choosing the trumpet. By age 13, he was playing jazz and popular music in nightclubs. At 14, he met the then-unknown Ray Charles, who taught him about arranging and composing music.
Jones also learned from jazz greats like Count Basie and trumpeter Clark Terry. He earned a scholarship to what is now the Berklee School of Music but left it to tour with Lionel Hampton’s band as a teenage trumpet player in the early 1950s.
“Music was the one thing I could control,” Jones wrote in his autobiography. “It was my world that offered me freedom. I didn’t have to look for answers. The answers lay in my trumpet and my handwritten scores. Music made me feel whole, strong, popular, independent, and cool.”
In the late 1950s, he toured the globe with a band organized by jazz pioneer Dizzy Gillespie. Later, he led his own band through Europe. By the early 1960s, he took a job at Mercury Records in New York, becoming one of the first Black executives at a white-owned record label.
At Mercury, he stepped outside jazz, producing his first hit single, “It’s My Party,” a song by Lesley Gore that topped the US charts in 1964. Though jazz purists criticized him for moving to pop music, Jones said, “Every artist, from Stravinsky to Miles Davis, aims to make the music they love and have it appreciated by everyone.”
At Mercury, he also scored his first film, Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker. Over his career, he composed for nearly 40 films, including In the Heat of the Night, In Cold Blood, Mackenna’s Gold, The Wiz, and the mini-series Roots.
The list of artists Jones worked with reads like a hall of fame: Basie, Gillespie, Tommy Dorsey, Dinah Washington, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin, and many more. He also produced music for stars like Paul Simon, Amy Winehouse, Barbra Streisand, and Donna Summer.
He arranged Sinatra’s hit “Fly Me to the Moon,” which astronaut Buzz Aldrin played during the first moon landing in 1969. Years later, Jones recalled, “Sinatra called me, excited: ‘We got the first music on the moon, man!’”
His own recordings spanned various genres, from jazz to soul and beyond. In 1991, his album Back on the Block won the Grammy for Album of the Year, along with Grammys in multiple categories.
Jones’ collaboration with Jackson was groundbreaking. Initially, Jackson’s record label doubted Jones’ fit as a producer, thinking he was too jazzy. They began with Off the Wall in 1979, after Jackson left the Jackson 5. The album included a mix of dance tracks and ballads, featuring four songs that became top 10 hits.
Their 1982 project, Thriller, became a defining album of the 1980s. To expand Jackson’s audience, they incorporated rock elements, inviting guitarist Eddie Van Halen to play a solo on “Beat It,” one of Jackson’s biggest hits. Along with spectacular music videos showcasing Jackson’s incredible dance moves during the rise of MTV, Thriller launched Jackson into superstardom.
Songs like “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” and the title track made Thriller the best-selling album of all time, earning three Grammys for Jones and seven for Jackson.
They followed with Bad in 1987, which produced five No. 1 hits, including “Smooth Criminal” and “Man in the Mirror.”
In 1985, Jones, Jackson, and Lionel Richie created “We Are the World,” a charity song to combat famine in Ethiopia. This all-star track featured artists like Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, and Smokey Robinson. Jones encouraged everyone with a sign that read, “Leave your ego at the door.”
After Jackson’s death in 2009, Jones sued his estate, claiming he was “cheated out of a lot of money” in royalties. In July 2017, a Los Angeles jury awarded him $9.4 million (Dh34 million).
Jones founded his own record label, Qwest, and launched Vibe, a magazine covering hip-hop culture, while also starting various humanitarian projects.
Even in his 80s, Jones remained active in music and projects. In 2018, he told GQ: “I’ve never been this busy in my life.”
Jones was married three times. His first wife was high school sweetheart Jeri Caldwell, with whom he had one daughter. His second wife was Swedish model Ulla Andersson, and they had two children, including Quincy III, who became a hip-hop producer.
His third wife was actress Peggy Lipton, with whom he had two daughters, including actress Rashida Jones. He also had two other children outside of marriage, including one with actress Nastassja Kinski.
