Music industry legend Quincy Jones dead aged 91

Quincy Jones, a music industry titan who worked with the likes of Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra has died aged 91.

American music industry legend, Quincy Jones, has died aged 91.

Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson, confirmed the death, revealing the music titan died on Sunday night local time at his home in the home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles.

He was 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.

“He is truly one of a kind and we will miss him dearly; we take comfort and immense pride in knowing that the love and joy, that were the essence of his being, was shared with the world through all that he created. Through his music and his boundless love, Quincy Jones’ heart will beat for eternity.”

Quincy Jones has died aged 91. Picture: Arnold Turner/Getty Images

Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones at the 1994 Grammy Awards. Picture: Chris Walter/WireImage

Jones had a historic career, from producing Michael Jackson’s albums “Thriller”, “Off the Wall” and “Bad”, to collaborating with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and many others.

“Thriller” alone sold more than 20 million copies in 1983.

In an 2016 interview with the Library of Congress, Jones spoke about the skills a producer needs to make a song or album a success.

“If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says ‘it was the producers fault’; so if it does well, it should be your ‘fault,’ too,” he said.

“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.”

He also found huge success in the TV and film industry, with his production company producing the hit series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, starring Will Smith.

Model Naomi Campbell and producer Quincy Jones. Picture: Instagram

Jones’ early life and rise to fame

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born March 14, 1933 in Chicago, to a mother who suffered from schizophrenia and was institutionalised when Jones was a young boy.

He and his brother Lloyd lived with their grandmother, a former slave, in Louisville, Kentucky, a period during which he has recalled eating pan-fried rats.

As a pre-teen, Jones returned to Chicago to live with their father, who did carpentry for the mob.

“I wanted to be a gangster until I was 11,” Jones said in the 2018 Netflix documentary on his illustrious career, directed by his daughter, actress Rashida Jones.

“You want to be what you see, and that’s all we ever saw.” The elder Jones moved the two boys to Seattle, where Quincy discovered a knack for the piano at a recreation centre — and history began.

“I’d found another mother,” he wrote in his 2001 autobiography.

Chance the Rapper, producer Quincy Jones and GQ editor-in-chief Jim Nelson attend the Grammys in 2017. Picture: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Jones began playing local gigs, penning his first composition, developing skills in music arrangement and taking up the trumpet.

He met a teenage Ray Charles after a performance by the soon-to-be blues and bebop pioneer, and the duo became mainstays in the local music scene.

Jones briefly studied at the Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts before joining bandleader Lionel Hampton on the road, eventually relocating to New York, where he gained attention as an arranger for stars including Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington, Count Basie and, of course, Charles.

The 1950s saw him head back on tour, in particular to Europe. He played second trumpet on Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel”, teaming with Gillespie for several years before moving to Paris in 1957, where he studied under the legendary composer Nadia Boulanger.

He traversed Europe with a number of jazz orchestras – but began to realise that a name and talent did not always translate into money.

Finding himself in deep debt, Jones joined the business side of music, getting a job at Mercury Records where he eventually rose to the role of vice president.

“When it came to the people who actually own the label and who control the music, the Black people were not in control of that,” Hancock said. “We were like hired hands. Quincy … opened the doorway.”

Multi-Grammy winning musician Quincy Jones gestures on the red carpet prior to the closing ceremony of the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival in 2009.

His expansion into Hollywood

Jones expanded into Hollywood, scoring films and television shows.

He wrote his own hits, like the addictively cacophonous Soul Bossa Nova, while also arranging at a breathless pace for dozens of stars across the industry.

The musician began working with Sinatra, for whom he arranged the most famous version of the oft-covered Fly Me To The Moon, and forged a musical and personal relationship with the crooner that would continue until the singer’s death.

As much hypemaster as orchestral wunderkind, Jones had a nose for talent and launched star after star, crafting hit after hit.

While producing the soundtrack for the musical The Wiz starring Diana Ross and Jackson, Jones started the partnership that would birth “Thriller” – thought to be the industry’s best-selling album ever.

“You can’t explain something like that, you can’t aim at it,” Jones told Rolling Stone of the album’s smash success.

“It’s why I used to keep a sign in the studio saying, ‘Always leave space for God to walk into the room.’”

Among the entertainment world’s most popular celebrities, with enough stories to fill an encyclopaedia and a resume that reads like a novel, Jones did not content himself with his countless musical stage and composing achievements.

He introduced Oprah Winfrey to the masses, taking the Chicago talk show host to the silver screen by connecting her to Steven Spielberg, who cast her in his film The Color Purple. She scored an Oscar nomination for the role.

He backed Martin Luther King Jr and a number of humanitarian causes, particularly in Africa.

In a bid to raise money for the Ethiopian famine crisis in 1985, Jones gathered dozens of pop stars to sing the now classic We Are the World.