Music icon and record producer Quincy Jones, who worked with Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, died aged 91 on November 3, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Born on 14th March 1933, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was an American record producer, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer.
Jones’ career spanned over 70 years, with 28 Grammy Awards won out of 80 nominations and a Grammy Legend Award in 1992.
Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor before working on pop music and film scores. He moved easily between genres, producing pop hit records for Lesley Gore in the early 1960s (including “It’s My Party”). He served as an arranger and conductor for several collaborations between the jazz artists Frank Sinatra and Count Basie.
In 1968, Jones became the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “The Eyes of Love” from the film Banning. Jones was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on the 1967 film “In Cold Blood”, making him the first African American to be nominated twice in the same year.
Jones produced three of the most successful albums by pop star Michael Jackson: Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987). In 1985, Jones produced and conducted the charity song “We Are the World”, which raised funds for victims of famine in Ethiopia. Just listen once, you will come to know the true essence of singing and poetry:
Some of the Lyrics of this devotedly lovable psalm are as follows:
“There comes a time when we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
Oh, and it’s time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all
We can’t go on pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We are all a part of God’s great big family
And the truth, you know
Love is all we need
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true, we’ll make a better day
Just you and me”
In 1971, Jones became the first African American to be the musical director and conductor of the Academy Awards. In 1995, he was the first African American to receive the academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the second most Oscar-nominated African American, with seven nominations each. In 2013, Jones was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the Ahmet Ertegun Award category. He was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time.
Among his ancestors is Elizabeth Washington Lewis, a sister of president George Washington. Jones was introduced to music by his mother, who always sang religious songs and next-door neighbor Lucy Jackson. When Jones was five or six, Jackson played stride piano next door and he would listen through the walls.
In Seattle, Jones developed his skills as a trumpeter and arranger. His classmates included Charles Taylor, who played saxophone and whose mother, Evelyn Bundy, was one of Seattle’s first society jazz bandleaders. Jones and Taylor began playing music together, and at the age of fourteen, they played with a National Reserve band. At age 14, Jones introduced himself to 16-year-old Ray Charles after watching him play at the Black Elks Club. Jones cited Ray Charles as an early inspiration for his own music career, noting that Charles overcame his blindness to achieve his musical goals.
Jones also credited his father’s sturdy work ethic with giving him the means to proceed, and his loving nature with holding the family together. Jones cited his father’s rhyming motto, “Once a task is just begun, never leave until it’s done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all.”
In 1975, Jones founded Qwest Productions, for which he arranged and produced successful albums by Frank Sinatra and others. In 1978, he produced the soundtrack for The Wiz, the musical adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, which starred Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. In 1982, he produced Jackson’s Thriller, the bestselling album in history of the music industry.
His 1981 album The Dude yielded the hits “Ai No Corrida” (a remake of a song by Chaz Jankel), “Just Once”, and “One Hundred Ways”, both sung by James Ingram. Marking Jones’s debut as a film producer, 1985’s The Color Purple received 11 Oscar nominations that year, including one for Jones’s score.
After the 1985 American Music Awards ceremony, Jones used his influence to draw most of the major American recording artists of the day into a studio to record the song “We Are the World” to raise money for the victims of famine in Ethiopia.
In 2001, Jones published his autobiography Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones. On July 31, 2007, he partnered with Wizzard Media to start the Quincy Jones Video Podcast. In each episode, he shared his knowledge and experience in the music industry. The first episode featured him in the studio producing “I Knew I Loved You” for Celine Dion.
Jones never learned to drive, citing his involvement in a car crash at age 14 as the reason. He was married three times and has seven children with five different women. He was married to Jeri Caldwell from 1957 to 1966, and they had a daughter named Jolie. He had a brief affair with Carol Reynolds, and they had a daughter named Rachel. He was later married to Swedish actress Ulla Andersson from 1967 to 1974, and they had a daughter named Martina and a son named Quincy, who also became a music producer.
The day after his divorce from Andersson, Jones married American actress Peggy Lipton. They had two daughters, Kidada (who was born before they were married) and Rashida, both of whom became actresses. Jones and Lipton divorced in 1990. He later dated and lived with German actress Nastassja Kinski from 1991 to 1995, and they had a daughter named Kenya, who became a fashion model.
Jones died at his home in Bel-Air, Los Angeles, on November 3, 2024, at the age of 91.
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