Remembering Quincy Jones, born on this day on 1933

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Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (March 14, 1933 – November 3, 2024) was an American record producer, composer, arranger, conductor, trumpeter, and bandleader. Over the course of his seven-decade career, he received many accolades including 28 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for seven Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards.

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Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor, before producing pop hit records for Lesley Gore in the early 1960s (including “It’s My Party”). He served as an arranger and conductor for several collaborations between Frank Sinatra and the jazz artist Count Basie. Jones produced three of the most successful albums by Michael Jackson: Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987). In 1985, Jones produced and conducted the charity song “We Are the World”, which raised funds for victims of famine in Ethiopia.

Jones composed numerous film scores including for The Pawnbroker (1965), In the Heat of the Night (1967), In Cold Blood (1967), The Italian Job (1969), The Wiz (1978), and The Color Purple (1985). He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for the miniseries Roots (1977). He received a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical as a producer for the revival of The Color Purple (2016).

Throughout his career he was the recipient of numerous honorary awards including:

the Grammy Legend Award in 1992, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1995, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2001, the National Medal of the Arts in 2011, the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2014, and the Academy Honorary Award in June 2024.

He was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time.

Jones’s social activism began in the 1960s with his support of Martin Luther King Jr. Jones was one of the founders of the Institute for Black American Music (IBAM), whose events aimed to raise funds for the creation of a national library of African-American art and music. Jones was also one of the founders of the Black Arts Festival in his hometown of Chicago.

In the 1970s, Jones formed the Quincy Jones Workshops. Meeting at the Los Angeles Landmark Variety Arts Center, the workshops educated and honed the skills of inner-city youth in musicianship, acting, and songwriting. Among its alumni were Alton McClain, who had a hit song with Alton McClain and Destiny, and Mark Wilkins, who co-wrote the hit song “Havin’ a Love Attack” with Mandrill and became National Promotion Director for Mystic Records.

For many years, Jones worked closely with Bono of U2 on a number of philanthropic causes. He was the founder of the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, a nonprofit organization that built more than 100 homes in South Africa and which aimed to connect youths with technology, education, culture, and music.

One of the organization’s programs was an intercultural exchange between underprivileged youths from Los Angeles and South Africa.

In 2004, Jones helped to launch the We Are the Future (WAF) project, which gave children in poor and conflict-ridden areas a chance to live their childhoods and develop a sense of hope. The program was the result of a strategic partnership between the Global Forum, the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, and Hani Masri, with the support of the World Bank, UN agencies, and major companies. The project was launched with a concert in Rome, Italy, in front of an audience of half a million people.

Jones supported a number of other charities, including the NAACP, GLAAD, Peace Games, AmfAR, and the Maybach Foundation. He served on the advisory board of HealthCorps. In July 2007, he announced his endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president. With the election of Barack Obama, Jones said that his next conversation “with President Obama [will be] to beg for a secretary of arts”. This prompted the circulation of an internet petition, asking Obama to create such a Cabinet-level position in his administration.

Quincy Jones production discography (on Wikipedia)

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Quincy Jones Presents – Full Concert [HD] | Live at North Sea Jazz Festival 2014.

SATURDAY 12 JULY 2014 • AMAZON • Ahoy Hall, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Musical titan Quincy Jones, the composer and producer who added his tasteful polish to recordings by everyone from Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson, has died, according to his representatives. He was 91.

Quincy Jones died Sunday night November 3, 2024, at his home in Bel Air, California, surrounded by his children, siblings and other family members, his publicist told CNN in a statement. “Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing,” the Jones family said in the 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.” The oeuvre of musician, composer and producer Quincy Jones, who died yesterday, November 3, 2024, at the age of 91, is extensive and versatile. Jones started out as a jazz musician and worked with giants such as Lionel Hampton, Count Basie and Frank Sinatra. He became much better known than for his own work as an arranger and producer for stars such as Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Michael Jackson. Quincy Jones is the most nominated artist for a Grammy Award in history.

He was nominated 80 times over a period of six decades and earned 28 of those nominations.

LINEUP NIKKI YANOFSKY (vocals); Cale Hawkins (keyboards); Stephen Maxwell, Marc Rogers, Alfonzo Cleveland III, ALFREDO RODRIGUEZ (piano); Reinier Elizarde (double bass); Michael Olivera, ANDREAS VARADY (guitar); Bandi Varady (bass); Adrian Varady (drums).

Music hits that Quincy Jones helped create