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TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Musician, producer, and record label executive Quincy Jones, who is also a champion music arranger, passed away at the age of 91 at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, USA, on Sunday night, November 3, 2024.
"With heavy hearts, we announce the departure of our father and brother, Quincy Jones," said the family in a statement quoted from Billboard on Monday. They added that despite this profound loss, they celebrate the extraordinary life he lived.
Throughout his more than 60-year career, Jones collaborated with various music legends such as Count Basie, Clark Terry, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, and Michael Jackson. Jones achieved many accomplishments, including producing Michael Jackson's famous albums Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad, as well as acquiring the rights to the novel The Color Purple.
Jones also led the historic recording for the charity single We Are the World in 1985 and became the Vice President of A&R at Mercury Records in 1961, making him the first African-American to hold an executive position at a major label. He was also known as the first African-American composer to be recognized for his work in films, starting with the music for The Pawnbroker in 1964. With support from Sidney Lumet, Henry Mancini, and Sidney Poitier, he arranged the music for two famous films in 1967, In the Heat of the Night and In Cold Blood.
In the television world, Jones composed the theme songs for the series The Bill Cosby Show, Ironside, and Sanford and Son. He also served as the executive producer for the well-known series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air starring Will Smith. In 2008, Jones penned his autobiography in the book The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey & Passions.
Jones has won 27 Grammy Awards out of 79 nominations and is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The man originally named Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born in Chicago in March 1933 to Quincy Delight Jones Sr. and Sarah Frances Jones, and he has one sibling, Lloyd.
His mother worked at a bank before being hospitalized for schizophrenia when Jones was young, while his father was a carpenter and a semi-pro baseball player. Following his parents' divorce, Jones' father remarried a woman named Elvera who already had three children. In 1943, their family moved to Bremerton, Washington, and later to Seattle, where Jones attended Garfield High School and began to take an interest in music, studying composition and playing the trumpet.
Jones briefly attended Seattle University and played in the school band before transferring to Berklee College of Music in Boston on a scholarship, but he dropped out to tour with Lionel Hampton as a trumpeter. In 1956, Jones signed a contract with ABC Paramount Records and moved to Paris a year later, where he studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and worked as the musical director for the Free and Easy tour by Harold Arlen.
In 1958, Jones started collaborating with Frank Sinatra and arranged the album It Might as Well Be Swing in 1964, the year he won his first Grammy for Best Arrangement on the song I Can't Stop Loving You.
Quincy Jones was married three times: first to Jeri Caldwell (1957-1966), then to actress Ulla Andersson (1967-1974), and lastly to actress Peggy Lipton (1974-1990). He has seven children, including from relationships with dancer Carol Reynolds and actress Nastassja Kinski.
BRITANNICA | BIOGRAPHY
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