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

Quincy Jones, the multi-talented music titan whose vast legacy ranged from producing Michael Jackson’s historic Thriller album to writing prize-winning film and television scores and collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other recording artists, has died at 91.

Quincy Jones during the Toronto Film Festival in 2018.Credit: AP

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

“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing,” the family said in a statement.

“And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him.”

Jones rose from running with gangs on the South Side of Chicago to the very heights of show business, becoming one of the first black executives to thrive in Hollywood, and amassing an extraordinary musical catalogue that includes some of the richest moments of American rhythm and song.

Jones kept company 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, organised President Bill Clinton’s first inaugural celebration, and oversaw the all-star recording of We Are the World, the 1985 charity song for famine relief in Africa.

Lionel Richie, who co-wrote We Are the World and was among the featured singers, would call Jones “the master orchestrator”.

Donny Hathaway, left, with fellow music legend Quincy Jones, circa 1970.Credit: Getty Images

Jones’ versatility and imagination helped set off the explosive talents of Jackson as he transformed from child star to the King of Pop. On such classic tracks as Billie Jean and Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough, Jones and Jackson fashioned a global soundscape out of disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B and jazz and African chants.

For the Thriller album, some of the most memorable touches originated with Jones, who recruited Eddie Van Halen for a guitar solo on the genre-fusing Beat It and brought in Vincent Price for a ghoulish voiceover on the title track.

“If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says, ‘it was the producer’s fault’; so if it does well, it should be your ‘fault’, too,” Jones said in an interview with the Library of Congress in 2016.

“The tracks don’t just all of a sudden appear. The producer has to have the skill, experience and ability to guide the vision to completion.”

The list of his honours and awards fills 18 pages in his 2001 autobiography, Q, including 27 Grammys at the time (now 28), an honorary Academy Award (now two) and an Emmy for Roots.

He also received France’s Legion d’Honneur, the Rudolph Valentino Award from Italy, and a Kennedy Centre tribute for his contributions to American culture. He was the subject of a 1990 documentary, Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones, and a 2018 film by his daughter Rashida Jones.

AP

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