The immensely talented musician and industry mogul, Quincy Jones, has worked with stars such as Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Will Smith and others during his decades-long career. He was a successful composer of dozens of film compositions and had many chart hits to his name. Jones was an arranger for jazz stars – including the legendary pianist Count Basie – and a multi-instrumentalist, most adept at trumpet and piano.
Quincy Jones, a titan of the US entertainment scene who worked with stars ranging from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson and Will Smith, has died. He was 91 years old.
Jones’ spokesman, Arnold Robinson, said he died Sunday night at his home in Los Angeles, surrounded by his family.
“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of the passing of our father and brother, Quincy Jones,” the family said in a statement. “And while this is a tremendous loss for our family, we celebrate the great life he lived and know there will never be another like him.”
Jones was arguably the most versatile pop culture figure of the 20th century. Perhaps best known for producing the albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad for Michael Jackson in the 80s, which made the singer the biggest pop star of all time. Jones also produced music for legendary artists, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer and many others.
THE ARTIST OF 28 “GRAMMY” TROPHIES
He was also a successful composer of dozens of film compositions and had many chart hits to his name. Jones was an arranger for jazz stars – including legendary pianist Count Basie – and a multi-instrumentalist, most adept at trumpet and piano. His television and film production company, founded in 1990, had great success with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and other series. He continued to create masterpieces well into his 80s, founding Qwest TV in 2017, an on-demand music TV service. Jones is third behind stars Beyoncé and Jay-Z for the most Grammy Award nominations in the history of the ceremony and is the third most decorated artist with the award, 28 trophies in total.
Among the artists who paid tribute shortly after the news of Jones’ death was actor Michael Caine, who shares his birthday, March 14, 1933.
“My birthday twin, Quincy, was a titan in the music world. It was a wonderful and unique one. I’m lucky to have known him,” Caine wrote.
Playwright and actor Jeremy O. Harris paid tribute to Jones’ “boundless” contribution to American culture, writing: “What couldn’t he do? Quincy Jones, born at a time when the limits on what a black boy could dream of were unimaginable, taught us that limitation does not exist.”
Jones was born in Chicago. His father, half white, was born of a slave owner’s affair with one of his slaves, while his mother’s family also had similar origins. Jones’ introduction to music came through the walls of the house where he grew up, listening to the sounds of the piano played by a neighbor. He started learning this instrument at the age of seven, with the help of his mother who sang for him. His parents separated and he moved with his father to Washington, where he learned to play the drums and a variety of other instruments in the high school band. At age 14, he began making music in a band with 16-year-old Ray Charles in Seattle clubs, accompanying the iconic Billie Holiday in 1948.
FALL AND RISE
He studied music at Seattle University, moving east to continue his education in Boston, and then moved to New York after being rehired by jazz bandleader Lionel Hampton, with whom he had toured as high school student.
In New York, one of his first performances was playing trumpet in Elvis Presley’s band, for the actor’s early television appearances. In that period of time he also met rising jazz stars such as Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. (Years later, in 1991, Jones directed Davis’ final performance, two months before he died.)
Jones toured Europe with Hampton and spent a lot of time there in the 50s, including a period to further his studies in Paris where he met notable figures such as Pablo Picasso, James Baldwin and Josephine Baker. At the age of 23 he also toured South America and the Middle East as musical director and arranger for the artist, Dizzy Gillespie. He assembled a brilliant crew for his big band touring Europe as a way to test the ‘Free and Easy’ style of jazz music, but this failed attempt left Jones depressed, close to suicide. and with the burden of a debt of 100 thousand dollars. He secured a job at the “Mercury Records” company and slowly paid off the debt with many jobs as a producer and arranger for famous artists such as: Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan and Sammy Davis Jr. Jones also began composing music for films. Some of them were, “The Italian Job”, “In the Heat of the Night”, “The Getaway” and “The Color Purple”. He also served as the producer of the latter, which was nominated for 11 “Oscar” awards, three of which were personally dedicated to Jones. In 1968, he became the first African-American to be nominated for an Oscar in the Best Original Song category for The Eyes of Love from the movie Banning. For television, he composed music for series such as “The Bill Cosby Show”, “Ironside” and “Roots”.
His collaboration with Sinatra began in 1958, when Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, engaged him to conduct and arrange music for Sinatra and his band for a charity event. Jones and Sinatra continued to work on projects until Sinatra’s final album, LA Is My Lady, in 1984. Jones’ career as a solo artist took off in the late 50s, recording self-titled albums as band leader for jazz ensembles that included notable figures such as Charles Mingus, Art Pepper and Freddie Hubbard. In the mid-60s, he produced multimillion-dollar hits for New York singer Lesley Gore, including the US #1 hit It’s My Party. He later began to create in the funk and disco genres, producing hits such as, “Give Me the Night” performed by George Benson and “Baby Come to Me”, by the duo Patti Austin and James Ingram, along with the group’s recordings ” Rufus” and the artist Chaka Khan, as well as the band “Brothers Johnson”.
SUCCESS WITH MICHAEL JACKSON
Jones also released his own funk material, reaching the top ten in the US charts with the albums Body Heat (1974) and The Dude (1981). His biggest success in this style of music was working with Michael Jackson. “Thriller” remains the best-selling album of all time, while Jones’ versatility on the albums “Off the Wall” and “Bad” allowed Jackson to metamorphose as an artist. He and Jackson (along with Lionel Richie and producer Michael Omartian) also created the hit “We Are the World”, a hugely successful charity song that raised funds to help end the famine in Ethiopia in 1985.
“I lost my little brother today, and a part of my soul went with him,” Jones said when Jackson died in 2009.
After the success of the film “The Color Purple” in 1985, he founded the film and television company “Quincy Jones Entertainment”. His biggest TV hit was The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which ran for 148 episodes and launched the career of movie and music star Will Smith. He also created the media company, “Qwest Broadcasting” and in 1993, the music magazine “Vibe”, in collaboration with the company “Time Inc”. During his career, Jones supported many humanitarian causes and charitable organizations including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Jazz Foundation of America, and others. He has also served as a mentor to young musicians, including multiple Grammy winner Jacob Collier.
His illustrious career came close to ending twice: he miraculously avoided death at the hands of Charles Manson’s cult in 1969 after planning to go to Sharon Tate’s house on the night of the gruesome murders there, but thankfully Jones had forgotten that meeting He also survived a brain aneurysm in 1974, which prevented him from playing the trumpet again for fear of further damage.
Jones was married three times, first to his high school sweetheart Jeri Caldwell, for nine years until 1966. Their daughter Jolie was born from this marriage. In 1967 he married Ulla Andersson and had a son and a daughter, divorcing in 1974 to marry actress Peggy Lipton, best known for her roles in The Mod Squad and Twin Peaks. “, with whom he has two daughters. Jones also had two other children out of wedlock, Rachel, with a dancer named Carol Reynolds, and Kenya, his daughter with actress Nastassja Kinski.
He never married again, but continued to have relationships with younger women. What made the most headlines was his year-long affair with 19-year-old Egyptian designer Heba Elawadi when he was 73. He has also said he had affairs with Ivanka Trump and Juliette Gréco. Jones is survived by his seven children.
Other artists who paid tribute to him were, LL Cool J, who wrote: “He was a father and an example to me, at a time when I really needed it. A wonderful mentor, example to follow, a true king. You gave me opportunities and shared wisdom with me. Music wouldn’t be music without you.”
Femi Koleoso, leader of the Mercury Prize-winning jazz group Ezra Collective, called Quince Jones a “musician and beautiful soul.”
