Quincy Jones Music Legend
The legendary musical producer, arranger and composer was a titan of American music for 70 years.
You may not think Céline Dion has anything in common with Lesley Gore … or that Frank Sinatra had anything in common with Michael Jackson. And what did Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Lionel Hampton, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey and Elvis Presley have in common besides playing landmark roles in creating the Great American Songbook of the 20th Century?
All of these legends, as diverse as their musical talents and styles may have been, were united at some point in their careers by one degree of separation in American music: Quincy Jones.
When this musical titan passed away in November 2024, a seminal chapter of that songbook was closed forever. Jones played an influential role in music, movies, television and the stage with the greatest stars of the age for seven decades as a legendary record producer, composer, arranger, conductor and bandleader. He won an astounding 28 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Award, a Tony, four Golden Globes, as well as being nominated for seven Academy Awards and in 1995 won the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
He produced Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall, Bad and Thriller albums, with Thriller becoming the highest-selling album of all time.
It was a long way from his poor, humble beginnings. Born into a black family in Chicago, Jones developed his love of music from his mother and became skilled at the trumpet after the family moved to Seattle. At age 20 in 1953, Jones travelled with jazz bandleader Lionel Hampton to Europe, and his reputation soon began to grow both as a musician and producer. He first worked with Sinatra in 1958, which changed the course of his career.
“Frank Sinatra took me to a whole new planet,” Jones recalled. “I worked with him until he passed away in 1998. He left me his ring. I never take it off. Now, when I go to Sicily, I don’t need a passport — I just flash my ring.”
Jones may be best remembered as the person who wrangled dozens of top American pop musicians of the day into one studio for one overnight session in 1985 to record “We Are the World” to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia. His influence and gravitas made it happen, and he made sure the superstars took the session seriously by posting a sign on the studio door: “Check Your Ego at the Door.”
When you hear the name Quincy Jones you smile because you know it’s a name that will live on in music forever — which may not be just a coincidence, given that his middle name was “Delight.”
