Quincy Jones, the multifaceted musical titan whose vast legacy spanned from producing Michael Jackson’s landmark “Thriller” album to writing award-winning film and television soundtracks to collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other artists, has died at 91. . years.
Jones died Sunday night at her home in the Bel Air area of Los Angeles surrounded by her family, said Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson.
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“Tonight, with a full but broken heart, we must share the news of the passing of our father and brother Quincy Jones,” the family said in a statement. “And while this represents an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life he lived and know there will never be another like him.”
Jones went from hanging out with gangs on Chicago’s South Side to the highest heights of showbiz. He became one of the first black executives to prosper in Hollywood and amassed an extraordinary musical catalog that includes some of the richest moments in American rhythm and song. For years, it was unlikely to find a music lover who didn’t own at least one record to his name, or a leader in the entertainment industry and beyond who didn’t have some connection to him.
Jones dealt with presidents and foreign leaders, movie stars and 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”organized President Bill Clinton’s inaugural celebration and oversaw the recording of “We Are the World,” the 1985 benefit album for famine relief in Africa.
Lionel Richie, who co-wrote “We Are the World” and was one of the featured singers, would call Jones “the bandmaster.”
In a career that began when records were still played on vinyl at 78 revolutions per minute, top honors probably go to his productions with Jackson: “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” were albums of unique style and appeal. . almost universal.
Jones’ versatility and imagination helped unleash Jackson’s explosive talents as he rose from child star to “king of pop.” On classic tracks like “Billie Jean” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” Jones and Jackson created a global soundscape of disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B, jazz and African chants. For “Thriller,” some of the most memorable touches came from Jones, who enlisted Eddie Van Halen for a guitar solo on “Beat It,” a track that crossed genre lines, and turned to Vincent Price for eerie narration. . on the album’s title track.
“Thriller” sold more than 20 million copies in 1983 alone and has competed with the Eagles’ “Greatest Hits 1971-1975,” among others, as the best-selling album of all time.
“If an album isn’t successful, everyone says ‘it was the producer’s fault’; so if it’s successful, it should be your ‘fault,’ too,” Jones said in an interview with the Library of Congress in 2016. “Songs don’t just appear out of the blue. The producer must have the skill, experience and capacity to guide the vision to completion.”
The list of his honors and awards occupies 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 Legion of Honor from France, the Rudolph Valentino Prize from the Republic of Italy, and a 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. His autobiography became a best-selling author.
Born in Chicago in 1933, Jones cited the hymns his mother sang at home as the first music he recorded. But he viewed his childhood with sadness, and once told Oprah Winfrey that “there are two types of people: those who have parents or caregivers who help them grow, and those who don’t. There is nothing in between.”
Jones’ mother suffered from emotional problems and ended up in a facility, a loss that made the world seem “meaningless” to Quincy.
He spent much of his time in Chicago on the streets, with gangs, stealing and fighting. “They stuck my hand in a fence with a knife, man,” he told the AP in 2018, while showing a scar from his youth. Music saved him.
As a child, he learned that a neighbor in Chicago had a piano and soon he was constantly playing it himself. His father moved to Washington when Quincy was 10 and his world changed at a neighborhood recreation center. Jones and some friends had burst into the kitchen and helped themselves to lemon meringue pie when Jones spotted a small room nearby with a stage. There was a piano on stage.
“I went up there, stopped, looked and then played a little,” 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 trumpet and befriending a young blind musician named Ray Charles, who became a lifelong friend. He was talented enough to win a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out when Hampton invited him to tour with his band.
Jones went on to work as an independent composer, director, arranger and producer. The teenager accompanied Billie Holiday. In his mid-twenties he was touring with his own band.
“We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving,” he later told Musician magazine. “That’s when I discovered there was music, and there was the music business. If I was going to survive, I would 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 1960s. In 1971 he became the first black music director for the Oscars ceremony. The first film he produced, “The Color Purple,” received 11 Oscar nominations in 1986 (though, to his great disappointment, no wins).
In partnership with Time Warner, he created Quincy Jones Entertainment, which included the pop culture magazine Vibe and Qwest Broadcasting. The company was sold for $270 million in 1999.
“My philosophy as an entrepreneur has always come from the same roots as my personal credo: take talented people on their own 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 virtually all forms of American music, whether accompanying Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” or the catchy, moody rhythm of a melancholic flute or opening his production of the delivered “In the Heat of the Night.” from Charles with a lust-filled tenor saxophone solo.
He worked with jazz giants (Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Duke Ellington), rappers (Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J), ballad stars (Sinatra, Tony Bennett), pop singers (Lesley Gore) and Rhythm and Blues stars ( Chaka Khan, rapper and singer Queen Latifah).
On “We are the World” alone, performers included Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen. He co-wrote hits for Jackson – “PYT (Pretty Young Thing” – and Donna Summer – “Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger) – and his songs were used as a basis by Tupac Shakur, Kanye West and other rappers. He even composed the song theme for the comedy “Sanford and Son.”