Quincy Jones, music titan who collaborated with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson, dies at 91

Music

His publicist says he died Sunday evening at his home in Los Angeles.

By HILLEL ITALY, Associated Press

November 4, 2024 | 9:27 am

Quincy Jones, the multi-talented music titan whose vast legacy ranges from producing Michael Jackson’s landmark ‘Thriller’ album to writing award-winning film and television scores and collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other artists, is at 91 died at the age of 10. .

Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson, says he died Sunday evening at his home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, surrounded by his family.

“Tonight, it is with full but broken hearts that we share the news of the passing of our father and brother Quincy Jones,” the family said in a statement. “And while this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the amazing life he lived and know there will never be another like him.”

Jones rose from working with gangs on the South Side of Chicago to the top echelons of show business, becoming one of the first black executives to thrive in Hollywood and leaving behind a vast musical catalog that includes some of the richest moments of American song and rhythm. . Over the past half century, it was difficult to find a music lover who didn’t own at least one record with Jones’ name on it, or anyone in the music, television, or film industries who didn’t have some connection to him.

Jones socialized 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 Clinton’s first inaugural celebration and oversaw the all-star recording of ‘We Are the World.”

In a career that began when records were still played on vinyl at 78 rpm, it seems unfair to exclude any work. But credit probably goes to his productions with Jackson on “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad,” albums that are universal in style and appeal. Jones’ versatility and imagination are a perfect match for Jackson’s burgeoning talents as he sensationally transformed from child star to the King of Pop. On classic songs like “Billie Jean” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’”, Jones and Jackson draw on disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B and jazz and African chants. For “Thriller,” some of the most memorable touches came from Jones, who recruited Eddie Van Halen for a guitar solo on the genre-defying “Beat It” and brought in Vincent Price for a creepy voiceover on the title track.

Selling more than 20 million copies in 1983 alone, “Thriller” made Jackson the first major black artist to have a video played on MTV and influenced countless artists.

“Michael had the look and the voice, and I had every sound you could imagine,” Jones explained.

The list of awards and accolades spans 18 pages in his 2001 autobiography “Q”: 28 Grammys (out of 80 nominations), an honorary Academy Award and an Emmy for “Roots.” He also received the French Legion d’Honneur and the Rudolph Valentino Award from the Republic of Italy. In 2001, Jones was named a Kennedy Center Honoree for his contributions to American culture. He was the subject of a 1990 documentary, “Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones,” and his memoirs made him a bestselling author.

“Despite all the Grammys and the special awards and testimonials that adulthood brings, it will always be the values ​​you carry within yourself – of work, love and integrity – that carry the greatest value, for these are what you helps make your dreams come true. intact, your heart held tight and your mind ready for a new day,” he wrote in his book.

Born in Chicago in 1933, Jones cited the hymns his mother sang in the house as the first music he could remember. But he looked back sadly on his childhood, telling Oprah Winfrey: ‘There are two kinds of people: those who have nurturing parents or caregivers, and those who don’t. There is nothing in between.” Jones’ mother suffered from emotional problems and was eventually institutionalized, 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.

Music was his passion and, almost literally, his salvation. As a boy, he learned that a Chicago neighbor owned a piano and soon found himself playing it constantly. His father moved to Washington State when Quincy was ten and his world turned into a community recreation center. Jones and some friends had broken into the kitchen and treated themselves to a lemon meringue pie when Jones noticed a small room nearby with a stage. There was a piano on the stage.

“I went there, paused, stared, and then tinkered with it for a moment,” he wrote in his autobiography. “That’s where I started to find peace. I was eleven. I knew this was 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 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 started working as a freelance composer, conductor, arranger and producer. As a teenager he supported Billie Holiday. In his mid-twenties he toured with his own band.

“We had the best jazz band in the world, and yet we were literally starving,” Jones later told Musician magazine. “Then I discovered that there was music, and that there was a music business. If I was going to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.”

His survivors include actor Rashida Jones and five other 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.

AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton and former AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen contributed to this report from Los Angeles.