A true titan in the world of music and entertainment has left us-
Word came in overnight that producer, arranger, songwriter, composer, and so much more, Quincy Jones died peacefully at his Bel Air home in Los Angeles, at the age of 91, as confirmed by a statement from his publicist, Arnold Robinson.
Jones began his career as a musician himself, a jazz trumpeter that soon found his duties going above and beyond that role and evolved himself into a unique persona that touched on almost every part of the musical and creative process.
Quincy Delight (yes, his real middle name!) Jones Jr. was born in South Chicago on March 14, 1933 to his bank officer/apartment manager mother and his namesake father, a carpenter and semi-pro baseball player (who also supposedly worked for gangsters). With his mother and neighbors singing religious hymns around the house, music was everywhere to a young Q. At age 11, he and his younger brother broke into a rec center and according to a 2008 BBC documentary, “god whispers” drew him to a piano in a corner of the room.
Moving to Washington state as a teenager, he introduced himself to a young Ray Charles, when Q was 14 and Charles was 16, and it became a meeting and long-running friendship that would help chart the direction of the rest of his life.
With a scholarship from (the now) Berklee School of Music in Boston, Q moved back east, eventually leaving school to play in Lionel Hampton’s band. Finding his way to New York, he found much work as a session man and as part of touring ensembles, elevating to Musical Director arranging and composing for likes of Dinah Washington, Frank Sinatra, Betty Carter, Count Basie, and more). Time spent in Paris and throughout Europe allowed him more responsibilities and greater creative freedom than he would have found in the U.S. at the time, and in 1961, he became the MD and VP of Mercury Records with expanded soundtrack and TV theme work ensuing.
His first success on the Pop charts came in 1963 with a teen-aged Lesley Gore, helping make her smash, “It’s My Party” to go to the top, leaving for Los Angeles soon after with increased film and TV work on properties like “The Deadly Affair,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “In Cold Blood,” “Mirage,” “For Love of Ivy” and “The Getaway” “Sanford and Son,” “Ironside”, and more.
All the while, Q had also been making jazz-funk ensemble records including 1969’s “Walking in Space” for which the title track won an instrumental Grammy and with 1974’s “Body Heat” album, his sound turned more commercial. While working on that album’s follow-up, he suffered a brain aneurysm and managed to pull through, though he did slow his workload as a result (along with some personal life changes).
In 1977, Q contributed music to the celebrated and seminal mini-series “Roots” and the following year, became the musical supervisor for Sidney Lumet’s adaptation of the stage version of “The Wiz” which introduced him to a young Michael Jackson and set a course for their collaborations on three of the most successful albums of all-time, “Off the Wall”, “Thriller” and “Bad” (46+million in unit sales in just the U.S.).
Coming out of Band Aid’s 1984 charity single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, there became a groundswell for an American companion version of the effort, and Q produced, arranged and conducted a post-Grammy supergroup studio session of over 40 singers banded together as USA for Africa (including Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder) for the fund-raising (and Four Grammy-winning) anthem, “We Are the World,” a song co-collaborator Lionel Richie still reprises in concert.
That same year, he would collaborate on Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple” film, starting an ever long kinship with the film’s co-star, Whoopi Goldberg and in 1989 in partnership with Warner Bros, started his own label, Qwest Records, which was the home of acts like Lena Horne and James Ingram; but also, gospel singer Andraé Crouch and the post-punk electronic legends, New Order.
His company grew exponentially as well, becoming a full-fledged multimedia entity (Quincy Jones Entertainment) which produced the sitcoms “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and “In the House” as well as the sketch show “Mad TV.” In publishing, Q helped start the hip-hop magazine Vibe, and published Spin and Blaze magazines with Robert Miller.
Over his prolific life, Q has the third-highest total of Grammy Awards won by a single person (nominated 80 times [!!!] and wining 28) behind only Beyoncé and Georg Solti. As well, it was recently announced that he will receive an honorary Oscar at the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony.
Q is survived by his younger brother, Richard; two sisters, Margie Jay and Theresa Frank; and seven children: Jolie, Kidada, Kenya, Martina, Rachel, Rashida, and Quincy III.
“Love, laugh, live, and give- that’s what it’s about”, he said in a recent interview, which sums up his impactful and prolific life, rather well.
Photo - Chuck Stewart Photography LLC
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