By james art 
Quincy Jones, the multi-talented musical titan whose vast legacy ranged from producing Michael Jackson’s landmark Thriller album to writing award-winning film and television scores and collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other recording artists, has died at 91.
Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson, said he died Sunday night at his home in the Bel Air area of Los Angeles, surrounded by his family. Jones was due to receive an honorary Academy Award later this month.
“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of the passing of our father and brother, Quincy Jones,” the family said in a statement. “And while this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life he lived and I know there will never be another like him.”
Jones rose from working with bands on the South Side of Chicago to the very top of show business, becoming one of the first black executives to thrive in Hollywood and amassing an extraordinary musical catalog that includes some of the richest moments of American rhythm and song. For years, it was unlikely to find a music lover who did not own at least one record to his name, or a leader in the entertainment industry and beyond who was not associated with him.
Jones keeps company with presidents and foreign leaders, movie stars and musicians, philanthropists and business leaders. He toured with Count Basie and Lionel Hampton, arranged recordings for Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, composed the soundtracks for “Roots” and “In the Heat of the Night,” organized the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton, and directed the recording of the stars of We Are the World, the 1985 charity record for starving people in Africa.
Lionel Richie, who co-wrote “We Are the World” and was among the featured singers, would call Jones a “master orchestrator.”
In a career that began when records were still played on 78 rpm records, top honors probably go to his productions with Jackson: “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” were albums almost universal in their style and appeal. Jones’ versatility and imagination helped spark Jackson’s explosive talent as he transformed from child star to “King of Pop.” On such classics as “Billie Jean” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” Jones and Jackson created a global soundscape of disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B and jazz and African chants. For “Thriller,” some of the most memorable touches came from Jones, who recruited Eddie Van Halen for a guitar solo on the genre-blending “Beat It” and enlisted Vincent Price for an eerie voiceover on the title track.
“Thriller” sold more than 20 million copies in 1983 alone and rivals the Eagles’ “Greatest Hits 1971-1975,” among others, as the best-selling album of all time.
“If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says ‘it’s the producers’ fault’; so if I’m doing well, it must be your ‘fault,”’ Jones said in a 2016 interview with the Library of Congress. The producer must have the skills, experience and ability to see the vision through to completion.”
The list of his honors and awards fills 18 pages in his 2001 autobiography “Q,” including 27 Grammys at the time (now 28), an Academy Award (now two) and an Emmy for “Roots.” He also received France’s Legion of Honor, the Rudolph Valentino Award from the Republic of Italy, and the Kennedy Center Honors for his Contribution to American Culture. He was the subject of a 1990 documentary, Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones, and a 2018 film by daughter Rashida Jones. His memoirs made him a best-selling author.
Born in Chicago in 1933, Jones would cite the hymns his mother sang around the house as the first music he could remember. But he looked back wistfully at his childhood, once telling Oprah Winfrey that “There are two kinds of people: those who have parents or guardians, and those who don’t. There’s nothing in between.” Jones’ mother suffers from emotional problems and is eventually institutionalized, a loss that makes the world seem “meaningless” to Quincy. He spends much of his time in Chicago on the streets, with gangs, stealing and is fighting
“They nailed my hand to a fence with a knife, man,” he told the AP in 2018, showing a scar from his childhood.
Music saved him. As a boy, he learned that a neighbor from Chicago owned a piano and was soon playing it himself. His father moved to Washington state when Quincy was 10, and his world changed at a neighborhood recreation center. Jones and some friends had burst into the kitchen and were enjoying a lemon meringue pie when Jones noticed a small room nearby with a stage. There was a piano on the stage.
“I went up there, stopped, stared, and then rattled it for a moment,” he wrote in his autobiography. “That’s where I started to find peace. I was 11. I knew this was it for me. Forever.
After a few years, he played the trumpet and befriended a young blind musician named Ray Charles, who became his lifelong friend. He was gifted enough to win a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out when Hampton invited him to tour with his band. Jones continues to work as a freelance composer, conductor, arranger and producer. As a teenager, he supported Billie Holiday. By the mid-1920s, he was touring with his own band.
“We had the best jazz band on the planet and yet we were literally starving,” Jones later told Musician magazine. “That’s when I discovered there was music and the music business. If I was to survive, I had to learn the difference between the two.”
As a music director, he broke racial barriers, becoming vice president of Mercury Records in the early 1960s. In 1971, he became the first black music director of the Academy Awards. The first film he produced, The Color Purple, received 11 Oscar nominations in 1986 (But, much to his dismay, no wins). In partnership with Time Warner, he created Quincy Jones Entertainment, which includes the pop culture magazine Vibe and Qwest Broadcasting. The company was sold for $270 million in 1999.
“My business philosophy has always come from the same roots as my personal credo: accept talented people on their own terms and treat them fairly and with respect, no matter who they are or where they come from,” Jones wrote in his autobiography.
He was at ease with almost any form of American music, whether he was setting Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” with a strong, swinging rhythm and brooding flute or opening his production of Charles’ soulful “In the Heat of the Night” with a sweet tone. tenor sax solo. He has worked with jazz giants (Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington), rappers (Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J), singers (Sinatra, Tony Bennett), pop singers (Leslie Gore) and R&B stars (Chaka Khan, Queen Latifah ).
On “We are the World” alone, performers include Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen. He co-wrote hits for Jackson – “PYT (Pretty Young Thing)” – and Donna Summer – “Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)” – and has songs sampled by Tupac Shakur, Kanye West and other rappers. He even composed the theme song for the sitcom Sanford and Son.
Jones was the facilitator and creator of the stars. He gave Will Smith his breakthrough on the hit TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which Jones produced, and through The Color Purple he introduced Winfrey and Whippy Goldberg to moviegoers. Beginning in the 1960s, he composed more than 35 film scores, including The Pawnbroker, In the Heat of the Night and In Cold Blood.
He called scoring “a multifaceted process, an abstract combination of science and soul.”
Jones’ work on the soundtrack for “The Wiz” led to his partnership with Jackson, who starred in the 1978 film. In an essay published in Time magazine after Jackson’s death in 2009, Jones recalled the singer holding notes about him, which contain thoughts of famous thinkers. When Jones asked about the origin of a passage, Jackson answered “Socrates,” but pronounced it “SO-crayts.” Jones corrected him: “Michael, it’s SOCK-ra-tees.”
“And the look he gave me then just made me say, because I was impressed with all the things I saw in him during the rehearsal process, ‘I’d like to try to produce your album,'” Jones recalled. “And he went back and told the people at Epic Records, and they said, ‘No way—Quincy is too jazzy.'” Michael was persistent, and he and his managers came back and said, “Quincy is producing the album.” And we continued to we’re doing Off the Wall. Ironically, it was one of the best-selling black albums at the time, and that album saved all the jobs of the people who said I was the wrong person. That’s the way it works.”
Tensions arose after Jackson’s death. In 2013, Jones sued Jackson’s estate, claiming she owed him millions in royalties and production royalties on some of the superstar’s biggest hits. In a 2018 interview with New York magazine, he called Jackson “as Machiavellian as they come” and claimed he took material from others.
Jones was addicted to work and play, and at times suffered for it. He nearly died of a brain aneurysm in 1974 and fell into a deep depression in the 1980s after The Color Purple was snubbed by Academy Awards voters; he never won a competitive Oscar. A father of seven from five mothers, Jones describes himself as a “dog” who has countless lovers around the world. He was married three times, among his wives was the actor Peggy Lipton.
“To me, loving a woman is one of the most natural, blissful, life-enhancing—and dare I say, religious—acts in the world,” he wrote.
Along with Rashida, Jones is survived by daughters Jolie Jones Levine, Rachel Jones, Martina Jones, Kidada Jones and Kenya Kinski-Jones; a son, Quincy Jones III; brother Richard Jones and sisters Theresa Frank and Margie Jay.
He was not an activist in his early years, but changed after he attended the funeral of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and later befriended the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Jones was dedicated to philanthropy, saying that “the best and only beneficial aspect of fame and celebrity is having a platform to help others.”
His causes include fighting HIV and AIDS, educating children and providing for the world’s poor. He founded the Quincy Jones Listen Up! Foundation for connecting young people to music, culture and technology and said that throughout his life he had been driven “by a spirit of adventure and a criminal level of optimism”.
“Life is like a dream, said the Spanish poet and philosopher Federico García Lorca,” Jones wrote in his memoir. “Mine was in Technicolor, with full Dolby sound through THX amplification, before they knew what these systems were.”
AP Entertainment writer Andrew Dalton and former AP Entertainment writer Sandy Cohen contributed to this report from Los Angeles.