Quincy Jones, a titan of American leisure who labored with stars from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson and Will Smith, has died aged 91.
Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson, stated he died on Sunday evening at his dwelling within the Bel Air part of Los Angeles, surrounded by his household.
“Tonight, with full however damaged hearts, we should share the information of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing,” the household stated in an announcement. “And though that is an unbelievable loss for our household, we have a good time the good life that he lived and know there’ll by no means be one other like him.”
Jones was arguably essentially the most versatile pop cultural determine of the twentieth century, maybe finest recognized for producing the albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Dangerous for Michael Jackson within the Nineteen Eighties, which made the singer the largest pop star of all time. Jones additionally produced music for Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer season and lots of others.
He was additionally a profitable composer of dozens of movie scores, and had quite a few chart hits underneath his personal title. Jones was a bandleader in large band jazz, an arranger for jazz stars together with Depend Basie, and a multi-instrumentalist, most proficiently on trumpet and piano. His TV and movie manufacturing firm, based in 1990, had main success with the sitcom The Recent Prince of Bel-Air and different exhibits, and he continued to innovate nicely into his 80s, launching Qwest TV in 2017, an on-demand music TV service. Jones is third solely to Beyoncé and Jay-Z for having essentially the most Grammy award nominations of all time – 80 to their 88 every – and is the awards’ third most-garlanded winner, with 28.
Among the many tributes to Jones was one from actor Michael Caine, who was born on the identical day as Jones: 14 March 1933. “My celestial twin Quincy was a titan within the musical world,” Caine wrote. “He was an exquisite and distinctive human being, fortunate to have recognized him.”
Playwright and actor Jeremy O Harris paid tribute to Jones’s “limitless” contributions to US tradition, writing: “What couldn’t he do? Quincy Jones, actually born when the bounds on how large a black boy may dream have been unfathomably excessive, taught us that the restrict doesn’t exist.”
Jones was born in Chicago. His half-white father had been born to a Welsh slave proprietor and considered one of his feminine slaves, whereas his mom’s household have been additionally descended from slave homeowners. His introduction to music got here by means of the partitions of his childhood dwelling from a piano performed by a neighbour, which he began studying aged seven, and by way of his mom’s singing.
His mother and father divorced and he moved along with his father to Washington state, the place Jones realized drums and a bunch of brass devices in his high-school band. At 14, he began taking part in in a band with a 16-year-old Ray Charles in Seattle golf equipment, as soon as, in 1948, backing Billie Vacation. He studied music at Seattle College, transferring east to proceed in Boston, after which moved to New York after being rehired by the jazz bandleader Lionel Hampton, with whom he had toured as a high-schooler (a band for which Malcolm X was a heroin supplier after they performed in Detroit).
In New York, one early gig was taking part in trumpet in Elvis Presley’s band for his first TV appearances, and he met the celebs of the flourishing bebop motion together with Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. (Years later, in 1991, Jones performed Davis’s final efficiency, two months earlier than he died.)
Jones toured Europe with Hampton, and spent a lot time there within the Nineteen Fifties, together with a interval furthering his research in Paris, the place he met luminaries together with Pablo Picasso, James Baldwin and Josephine Baker. On the age of 23, he additionally toured South America and the Center East as Dizzy Gillespie’s musical director and arranger. He convened a crack workforce for his personal large band, touring Europe as a solution to check Free and Simple, a jazz musical, however the disastrous run left Jones, by his personal admission, near suicide and with $100,000 of debt.
He secured a job at Mercury Information and slowly paid off the debt with loads of work as a producer and arranger for artists together with Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan and Sammy Davis Jr. He additionally started scoring movies, his credit ultimately together with The Italian Job, Within the Warmth of the Evening, The Getaway and The Coloration Purple. (He produced the final of those, which was nominated for 11 Oscars, three for Jones himself.) In 1968, he turned the primary African American to be nominated for finest authentic music on the Oscars, for The Eyes of Love from the movie Banning (alongside songwriter Bob Russell); he had seven nominations in complete. For TV, he scored programmes akin to The Invoice Cosby Present, Ironside and Roots.
His work with Sinatra started in 1958 when he was employed to conduct and prepare for Sinatra and his band by Grace Kelly, princess consort of Monaco, for a charity occasion. Jones and Sinatra continued engaged on initiatives till Sinatra’s remaining album, LA Is My Woman, in 1984. Jones’s solo musical profession took off within the late Nineteen Fifties, recording albums underneath his personal title as bandleader for jazz ensembles that included luminaries akin to Charles Mingus, Artwork Pepper and Freddie Hubbard.
Jones as soon as stated of his time in Seattle: “When individuals write concerning the music, jazz is on this field, R&B is on this field, pop is on this field, however we did every part,” and his catholic tastes served him nicely as trendy pop mutated out of the swing period. He produced 4 million-selling hits for the New York singer Lesley Gore within the mid-60s, together with the US No 1 It’s My Celebration, and later embraced funk and disco, producing hit singles together with George Benson’s Give Me the Evening and Patti Austin and James Ingram’s Child Come to Me, together with information by the band Rufus and Chaka Khan, and the Brothers Johnson. Jones additionally launched his personal funk materials, scoring US Prime 10 albums with Physique Warmth (1974) and The Dude (1981).
His greatest success on this model was his work with Michael Jackson: Thriller stays the largest promoting album of all time, whereas Jones’s versatility between Off the Wall and Dangerous allowed Jackson to metamorphose from lithe disco to ultra-synthetic funk-rock. He and Jackson (together with Lionel Richie and producer Michael Omartian) additionally helmed We Are the World, a profitable charity single that raised funds for famine aid in Ethiopia in 1985. “I’ve misplaced my little brother immediately, and a part of my soul has gone with him,” Jones stated when Jackson died in 2009. In 2017, Jones’s authorized workforce efficiently argued that he was owed $9.4m in unpaid Jackson royalties, although he misplaced on attraction in 2020 and needed to return $6.8m.
After the success of The Coloration Purple in 1985, he fashioned the movie and TV manufacturing firm Quincy Jones Leisure in 1990. His greatest display hit was the sitcom The Recent Prince of Bel-Air, which ran for 148 episodes and launched the profession of Will Smith; different exhibits included the LL Cool J sitcom Within the Home and the long-running sketch comedy present MadTV.
He additionally created the media firm Qwest Broadcasting and in 1993, the Black music journal Vibe in partnership with Time Inc. All through his profession he supported quite a few charities and causes, together with the , Nationwide Affiliation for the Development of Coloured Folks, the Jazz Basis of America and others, and mentored younger musicians together with the British a number of Grammy winner Jacob Collier.
Jones’ illustrious profession was twice practically reduce brief: he narrowly averted being killed by Charles Manson’s cult in 1969, having deliberate to go to Sharon Tate’s home on the evening of the murders there, however Jones forgot the appointment. He additionally survived a mind aneurysm in 1974 that prevented him from taking part in the trumpet once more in case the exertion triggered additional hurt.
Jones was married thrice, first to his high-school girlfriend Jeri Caldwell, for 9 years till 1966, fathering his daughter Jolie. In 1967, he married Ulla Andersson and had a son and daughter, divorcing in 1974 to marry actor Peggy Lipton, finest recognized for roles in The Mod Squad and Twin Peaks. That they had two daughters, together with the actor Rashida Jones, earlier than divorcing in 1989. He had two additional kids: Rachel, with a dancer, Carol Reynolds, and Kenya, his daughter with actor Nastassja Kinski.
He by no means remarried, however continued so far a string of youthful girls, elevating eyebrows along with his year-long partnership with 19-year-old Egyptian designer Heba Elawadi when he was 73. He has additionally claimed to have dated Ivanka Trump and Juliette Gréco. He’s survived by his seven kids.
Different artists paying tribute included LL Cool J, who wrote: “You have been a father and instance at a time after I really wanted a father and instance. Mentor. Position mannequin. King. You gave me alternatives and shared knowledge. Music wouldn’t be music with out you.” Femi Koleoso, bandleader with Mercury prize-winning jazz group Ezra Collective, referred to as Jones a “masterful musician and exquisite soul”.
Nile Rodgers of Stylish wrote “relaxation in energy”, describing Jones as a “chief, instructor, spirit, pioneer”.