Quincy Jones passed away at his home in Bel Air, California, on Sunday, November 3. He was 91 years old.
Jones was a musical polymath who made significant contributions to jazz, soul, and funk, as well as producing some of the biggest pop albums of the century, including Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad.
His family shared a statement saying, “Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing. 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 had a remarkable career that lasted seven decades, where he excelled as a trumpet player, composer, arranger, producer, and conductor. He was involved in many music genres, including big-band jazz, gospel, soul, funk, disco, rock, and rap. He is particularly known for producing Michael Jackson’s albums Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad, which helped reshape the pop music landscape.
Before his work with Jackson, Jones made significant contributions to jazz, Sixties pop, and film scores. He studied under renowned classical teacher Nadia Boulanger, arranged records for Ray Charles, and conducted for Frank Sinatra. In a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, Jones emphasized the importance of learning from mistakes, saying, “You gotta hope you can make all the mistakes you can so you learn. I made all the mistakes. All of ’em.”
Jones was known for his ability to elevate the performances of many iconic singers, collaborating with artists like Betty Carter, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, and many others throughout his career.
In recent years, Jones’s musical output slowed down, but his catalogue is still frequently sampled, keeping his credit list growing. In the 2000s, he began managing emerging talent, including jazz musicians Alfredo Rodríguez and Justin Kauflin. In 2017, he launched Qwest TV, an online library dedicated to jazz video content.
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