The iconic American music producer Quincy Jones died on November 3 at the age of 91 years.
He was loved and celebrated for his 70-year career, and was known to work with legends like Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra during his music profession.
“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing. 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,” the family’s statement, issued to the press by his representative Arnold Robinson read in part.
“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.”
Quincy was reportedly so huge among peers and fans alike, that he went by a one-letter handle, Q.
Variety Magazine reports that Q had a background in Jazz music, and became one of pop’s music’s most formidable figures.
He won six of his 28 Grammy Awards for his 1990 album ‘Back on the Block’ and was a three-time producer of the year honoree.
“To many, he is probably best known for his production collaborations with Michael Jackson, which began in 1979 with the singer’s breakthrough solo album ‘Off the Wall,’ which has sold an estimated 20 million copies internationally.
Quincy was classically trained, and his enormous success in the 1980s was the culmination of an extraordinary career, per Britannica.
He grew up in Seattle, Washington, and dipped his feet in the music scene with Gospel music at the age of 12.
He was then a jazz arranger in New York City in his early 20s and musical director of Barclay Records in France soon after.
“In the 1960s he worked with Ray Charles, oversaw the artists-and-repertoire department at Mercury Records, and began his long career as a composer for film and television,” Britannica notes.
“In the 1970s he produced hits for Aretha Franklin and Chaka Khan. It was his collaboration with Michael Jackson…that drew together all those strands and brought Jones international acclaim.”
The site praises Quincy for creating a new, sophisticated, dance based sound for Jackson, who at the time had gone solo and was rising to meteoric levels.
“Spending lavishly and recording in a variety of Los Angeles studios, Jones combined what he called “ear candy” (odd instruments playing half-buried melody lines) with rhythms that were both elastic and simple enough to convince almost anyone they could dance.”
BBC describes this as an era-defining partnership, while noting that Quincy oversaw 1985’s We Are the World, one of the biggest-selling songs of all time.
“Few branches of American popular music were immune to his influence.”
He talked about his deep love for his craft on a 2018 Netflix documentary.
Quincy described his first time seeing and experiencing a piano as one that changed his life.
“I touched it and every cell in my body said, this is what you’ll do [for] the rest of your life,” he said, adding that “I would have been dead or in prison a long time ago” if he hadn’t discovered music.
