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A
variety
of music
and
movie
stars
singing
“We Are
the
World”
at a
recording
session
held on
January
28,
1985.
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Quincy
Jones,
music
legend
who
shaped
Michael
Jackson's
career,
dies
Steve
Marble
12–16
minutes
BEL-AIR,
CA -
Quincy
Jones,
who
expanded
the
American
songbook
as a
musician,
composer
and
producer
and
shaped
some of
the
biggest
stars
and most
memorable
songs in
the
second
half of
the 20th
century,
has died
at his
home in
Bel-Air.
Widely
considered
one of
the most
influential
forces
in
modern
American
music,
Jones
died
Sunday
surrounded
by his
children,
siblings
and
close
family,
according
to his
publicist
Arnold
Robinson.
He was
91. No
cause of
death
was
disclosed.
“[A]lthough
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’
family
said in
a
statement
to The
Times.
“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.”
The arc
of
Jones’
long
career
stretched
from
smoky
jazz
clubs,
where he
collaborated
with
innovators
such as
Miles
Davis,
Charlie
Parker
and
Dizzy
Gillespie,
to his
Los
Angeles
power
base,
where,
like a
titan,
he
watched
over his
musical
empire
from a
mansion
atop
Bel-Air.
Willie
Nelson,
Quincy
Jones
and
Bruce
Springsteen
stand
together
looking
at sheet
music.
Willie
Nelson,
left,
Quincy
Jones
and
Bruce
Springsteen
review
the
music
before
recording
“We are
the
World.”
(Netflix)
During
his
career,
Jones
helped
mold
Michael
Jackson
into a
mega-star
by
producing
a
trilogy
of
albums
that
made the
pop
singer
arguably
the
best-known
musician
in the
world,
raised
tens of
millions
for
Ethiopian
famine
victims
by
producing
the
bestselling
song “We
Are the
World,”
and won
28
Grammy
awards,
more
than any
artist
besides
Beyoncé
and
George
Solti.
If some
stars
reached
a career
cruising
altitude
where
they
were
identified
by just
one name
—
Prince,
Madonna,
Sting —
Jones
boiled
it down
to a
single
letter:
Q.
Harvard
historian
and
literary
critic
Henry
Louis
Gates
Jr. said
he
viewed
Jones’
influence
and
career
milestones
as being
on par
with
American
innovators
and big
thinkers
like
Henry
Ford,
Thomas
Edison
and Bill
Gates.
“We’re
talking
about
the
people
who
define
an era
in the
broadest
possible
way,”
Gates
told
Smithsonian
Magazine
in 2008.
“Quincy
has a
lifeline
into the
collective
consciousness
of the
American
public.”
Oprah
Winfrey,
who
worked
with
Jones
when he
helped
produce
and
score
the
music
for
1985’s
“The
Color
Purple,”
described
him as a
force of
nature,
unlike
anything
she’d
encountered.
“Quincy
Jones on
a bad
day does
more
than
most
people
do in a
lifetime,”
she said
in “The
Complete
Quincy
Jones:
My
Journey
and
Passions.”
The late
Miles
Davis
put it
another
way:
“Certain
paperboys
can go
in any
yard
with any
dog and
they
won’t
get bit.
He just
has it.”
When he
was
young
and amid
the
legends
of the
day,
Jones
said he
would
“sit
down,
shut up
and
listen,”
silently
absorbing
lessons
he
realized
he
couldn’t
possibly
get
anywhere
else.
But fame
and
success
ultimately
released
any
reluctance
to speak
out, and
seemed
to
loosen
his ego
as well.
Asked by
The
Times in
2011 to
compare
himself
to Kanye
West
(now
known as
Ye),
Jones
seemed
indignant.
“Did
[West]
write
for a
symphony
orchestra?
Does he
write
for a
jazz
orchestra?
Come on,
man ...
I’m not
putting
him down
or
making a
judgment
or
anything,
but we
come
from two
different
sides of
the
planet.”
In
testament
to the
respect
Jones
commanded,
when
Barack
Obama
was
exploring
a
presidential
bid, one
of his
first
stops in
Southern
California
was the
producer’s
Bel-Air
estate.
Taking
in the
home’s
king-of-the-universe
views,
Obama
listened
while
Jones
told
stories
of
jamming
with
legends
like
Gillespie
or the
surge of
power he
felt
working
the
soundboard
as one
mega-star
after
another
stepped
forward
to sing
a verse
for “We
Are the
World.”
Quincy
Delight
Jones
Jr. was
born
March
14,
1933, in
Chicago.
His
father,
Quincy
Jones
Sr., was
a
semi-professional
baseball
player
and a
carpenter.
His
mother,
Sarah
Frances,
was a
bank
officer
and an
apartment
manager.
His
younger
brother,
Lloyd,
died in
1998.
As a
youth,
Jones
was
exposed
to Black
roots
and
religious
music
and
early
jazz
piano.
His
mother
was an
avid
singer
of
spirituals,
and a
next-door
neighbor,
Lucy
Jackson,
helped
Jones
learn to
tap out
boogie-woogie
on the
keyboard.
Michael
Jackson,
wearing
sunglasses
and his
signature
glove,
holds
eight
Grammys
and
smiles
with
Quincy
Jones.
Michael
Jackson
holds
his
eight
awards
as he
poses
with
Quincy
Jones at
the
Grammy
Awards
in 1984.
(Doug
Pizac /
Associated
Press)
When he
was 10,
Jones’
mother
was
committed
to a
mental
institution.
The
impact
was
profound
and
Jones
said he
was left
with
painful
memories
of the
trips to
the
psychiatric
hospital,
unsure
exactly
why his
mother
couldn’t
come
home
with
him.
With his
mother
institutionalized,
Jones
said, he
began to
run the
streets.
It was a
tough,
beaten-down
neighborhood
on the
south
side of
Chicago
and
gangsters
controlled
every
block.
One day
when
Jones
was
walking
home, a
group of
street
toughs
pinned
him to a
fence,
plunged
a knife
blade
into one
of his
hands
and
stabbed
him in
the
temple
with an
ice
pick.
That
helped
convince
Jones’
father,
who had
divorced
and
remarried,
that it
was time
to get
out of
Chicago.
In
search
of a
better
job and
a safer
environment,
Jones’
father
moved
his
newly
blended
family
to
Bremerton,
Wash.,
in 1943
and
found
work at
the
Puget
Sound
Naval
Shipyard.
When the
war
ended,
the
family
moved to
Seattle.
The
upheaval
and
family
turbulence
shaped
Jones.
“If I
had a
good
family,”
he once
joked,
“I might
have
been a
terrible
musician.”
When he
was 14,
he
befriended
a
teenager
named
Ray
Charles.
The
friendship,
which
lasted a
lifetime,
opened a
new
world
for
Jones.
In
Charles,
Jones
found an
emerging
prodigy,
a
musician
who
played a
blend of
blues,
gospel
and R&B
he’d
never
heard.
The two
started
playing
together
and
Charles
— blind
since he
was 7 —
urged
Jones to
pursue
arranging
and
composing.
“I met
Ray
Charles
at 14
and he
was 16,”
Jones
recalled
“But he
was like
a
hundred
years
older
than
me.”
After
high
school,
Jones
attended
Seattle
University
and
earned a
scholarship
to
what’s
now the
Berklee
College
of Music
in
Boston.
In the
early
’50s he
joined
Lionel
Hampton’s
big band
as a
trumpeter
and
arranger
and
later
toured
South
America
and the
Middle
East
with
Gillespie’s
big
band.
Jones’
visibility
escalated
and,
barely
into his
mid-20s,
he was
soon
arranging
and
recording
for
Sarah
Vaughan,
Dinah
Washington,
Count
Basie,
Duke
Ellington
and, of
course,
Charles.
In the
late
’50s,
Jones
relocated
to
Paris,
where he
studied
composition
with the
highly
regarded
teacher
Nadia
Boulanger
and
composer
Olivier
Messiaen.
But a
European
tour
leading
his own
big band
in the
early
’60s ran
into
financial
problems
and came
to an
unceremonious
end.
“We had
the best
jazz
band on
the
planet,”
Jones
told
Musician
magazine,
”and yet
we were
literally
starving.
That’s
when I
discovered
that
there
was
music,
and
there
was the
music
business.”
Quincy
Jones
smiles
with his
arm over
the back
of a
chair.
Quincy
Jones
poses
for a
portrait
during
the
Toronto
Film
Festival
in 2018.
(Chris
Pizzello
/
Invision/AP)
Another
door
opened
when
Mercury
Records
offered
Jones a
position
as
musical
director
of the
company’s
New York
division.
In 1964,
he was
promoted
to vice
president
of
Mercury
Records,
the
first
Black
person
to hold
an
executive
position
at a
major
U.S.
record
company.
Jones’
successes
continued.
In the
mid-’60s,
he
produced
four
million-selling
singles
and 10
Top 40
hits for
Lesley
Gore,
including
“It’s My
Party.”
He also
arranged
Frank
Sinatra’s
iconic
“Fly Me
to the
Moon.”
In 1964,
he
agreed
to
compose
the
music
for
Sidney
Lumet’s
“The
Pawnbroker.”
It was
the
first of
more
than 30
films
that
Jones
would
score, a
list
that
included
“The
Deadly
Affair,”
“In the
Heat of
the
Night,”
“Bob &
Carol &
Ted &
Alice,”
“They
Call Me
Mr.
Tibbs!”
and “The
Getaway.”
While
the jobs
came
quickly,
the
undertow
of
racism
in the
industry
was
always
there,
tugging
at him.
When
Jones
was
asked to
write
the
soundtrack
for “In
Cold
Blood,”
he said
Truman
Capote,
who
wrote
the
bestselling
book the
film was
based
on,
tried to
block
him from
working
on the
film.
“He
said, ‘I
just
don’t
understand
why you
want a
colored
man’s
music in
a film
with no
negros,’”
Jones
told the
San
Francisco
Chronicle
in a
2008
interview.
“I knew
it was
going to
be hard
for a
Black
guy to
break
into
movies.”
The
musical
score
for “In
Cold
Blood,”
though,
earned
him an
Academy
Award
nomination
in 1967,
the
first of
seven
times he
was
nominated.
Jones
was
equally
productive
for
television,
composing
the
theme
music
for
“Sanford
and
Son,”
“The
Bill
Cosby
Show,”
“Banacek”
and
“Ironside.”
His busy
schedule
also
included
the
founding
of his
own
company,
Qwest
Productions,
and
stints
providing
arrangements
for
Peggy
Lee,
Sarah
Vaughan,
Billy
Eckstine
and Ella
Fitzgerald,
Sinatra
and his
own
bands.
After
producing
the
soundtrack
for the
1978
film
“The
Wiz” —
which
featured
Diana
Ross and
Michael
Jackson
— Jones
was
approached
by
Jackson,
who
wondered
if he
would
produce
his next
album.
Jackson’s
record
label
initially
stood in
the way,
worried
that
Jones
was a
jazz
guy.
Jackson
pushed
back,
insisting
he
wanted
to work
with
Jones.
“Everybody
said,
‘You
can’t
make
Michael
any
bigger
that he
was in
the
Jackson
5,’”
Jones
recalled.
“I said,
‘We’ll
see.’”
The
album,
“Off the
Wall,”
was a
critical
success,
but the
follow-up,
“Thriller,”
released
in 1982,
became
the
bestselling
album of
all time
and
earned
eight
Grammy
awards.
Suddenly,
Jackson’s
career
was
kicked
into the
stratosphere,
and
Jones
was
regarded
as the
high
priest
of pop
music.
Five
years
later,
Jackson
released
“Bad,”
the
third
and
final
collaboration
between
the two.
It
yielded
five No.
1 hits.
Jackson,
Jones
said,
was the
hardest-working
performer
he’d
ever
seen. To
fully
harness
the
emotional
might
that
Jackson
seemed
to
possess,
Jones
said he
transformed
the
recording
studio
into a
concert
stage by
dimming
the
lights
and
urging
Jackson
to dance
while he
recorded,
as if an
entire
audience
were
bearing
witness.
Decades
later,
Jones
was
awarded
$9.4
million
after a
Los
Angeles
jury
determined
he’d
been
shortchanged
millions
in
royalties
by
Jackson’s
estate.
Following
the 1985
American
Music
Awards,
Jones
assembled
a
star-studded
team of
musicians,
from
Ross to
Bruce
Springsteen,
to
record
“We Are
the
World.”
The song
became
one of
the
bestselling
singles
of all
time and
raised
nearly
$70
million
to
assist
victims
of the
famine
in
Ethiopia.
But the
workload,
the
stress
and the
weight
of a
crumbling
marriage
had
taken a
toll,
and
Jones
broke.
He
postponed
all
ongoing
projects,
canceled
his
scheduled
appearances
and flew
to
Tahiti.
Alone.
“I
stayed
for 31
days,”
he told
The
Times in
1989.
“It was
the most
heavy 31
days of
my life.
I went
all the
way
down. I
just
wandered
from
island
to
island.
I was
really
in
trouble.”
As he
put the
pieces
back
together,
Jones
said he
felt
oddly
renewed,
as if
he’d
undergone
a
spiritual
cleansing.
“Sometimes
you need
God to
just
slap you
and say,
‘Let’s
take a
look and
see
what’s
going on
here.’”
Back in
L.A.,
his
career
resumed
briskly.
He
formed
Quincy
Jones
Entertainment,
a
partnership
with
Time
Warner,
produced
NBC’s
“Fresh
Prince
of Bel
Air,”
staged
an
inauguration
concert
for
President
Clinton
and
began
recording
“The Q
Series,”
an
ambitious
anthology
of Black
American
music.
He also
formed
Qwest
Broadcasting,
which
then was
the
largest
minority-owned
broadcasting
company
in the
U.S.
In 1996,
he
produced
the 68th
annual
Academy
Awards
telecast.
Three
years
later,
U2 lead
singer
Bono,
singer-songwriter
Bob
Geldof
and
Jones
met with
Pope
John
Paul II
as part
of an
effort
to erase
the debt
load
shouldered
by Third
World
nations.
And in
2008, he
was
named an
artistic
advisor
to the
2008
Summer
Olympics
in
Beijing,
a post
some
urged
him to
reject
in
protest
over
China’s
dismal
human
rights
record.
The
awards
and
honors
bestowed
on Jones
were
nearly
mind-bending.
He was
nominated
for a
Grammy
80
times,
winning
28
times.
He
received
eight
Academy
Award
nominations.
He was
the
first
musician
whom
France
honored
as both
Commandeur
de
l’Ordre
des Arts
et des
Lettres
and
Commandeur
de la
Légion
d’Honneur.
He was
inducted
into the
Rock &
Roll
Hall of
Fame and
he
received
Kennedy
Center
Honors.
Jones’
Quincy
Jones
Foundation
distributed
millions
of
dollars
in L.A.
and
abroad
to
advance
humanitarian
causes
and
encourage
arts
education.
Quincy
Jones
Elementary
School
in South
L.A. was
named in
his
honor.
When he
attended
the
ribbon-cutting
in 2011,
he said
it
brought
back
memories
of when
he first
arrived
in L.A.
Late in
life,
Jones
reflected
on his
mortality,
telling
The
Times
that he
had
deleted
the
names of
188
friends
and
associates
from his
iPhone
in a
single
year.
All
dead.
“You
start
out
playing
in bands
and
doing
duets,”
he said.
“And
then you
worry
that in
the end
it’s all
going to
be a
solo.”
Jones
was
married
three
times,
the
longest
to
actress
Peggy
Lipton.
He is
survived
by seven
children,
including
actor
Rashida
Jones.
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