R.I.P. Quincy Jones, one-of-a-kind producer and prolific Michael Jackson collaborator

Quincy Jones, the unmatched musician and producer behind some of the 20th century’s biggest hits, has died. Variety confirmed that he died in his home in Bel-Air Sunday night at 91 years old. “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,” his family expressed in a statement to the outlet. “Through his music and his boundless love, Quincy Jones’ heart will beat for eternity.”

Jones’ fingerprints are everywhere across a half-century of music. The artist, composer, arranger, and producer earned 28 Grammy Awards over the span of his life, from 80 nominations—the third most wins of anyone. His work for films like The Wiz and The Color Purple earned him Oscar nominations, and he won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1995 ceremony. As a producer, Jones can count Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad records, Lesley Gore’s I’ll Cry If I Want To, and Frank Sinatra’s LA Is My Lady among his catalog. 

Jones was born on the South Side of Chicago in 1933, and after World War II, his family moved to Seattle. Jones recalled his childhood as extremely volatile; in his 2002 book Q: The Autobiography Of Quincy Jones, the musician recalls being stabbed in the hand and details his mother’s issues with schizophrenia. “Of course it affected [how I perceive success],” he said in an infamous 2018 Vulture interview. “I appreciate the shit I have because I know what it’s like to have nothing.” As a child, he played the trumpet and, at 14, he met Ray Charles, a major source of inspiration. He eventually earned a scholarship to Seattle University, but transferred after a semester to the Berklee College Of Music. 

After Berklee, he struck out on his own as a jazz trumpeter, playing with jazz icons like Count Basie and Dinah Washington, and serving as bandleader for Dizzy Gillespie. Eventually, he got a position as music director at Mercury Records; in the early 1960s, he was promoted to vice president at the label. Around the same time, director Sidney Lumet invited him to compose the score for The Pawnbroker. His work scoring films and television shows continued through the ’60s and 1970s with films like In The Heat Of The Night, The Italian Job, and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice among his most notable. Jones also contributed some indelible theme songs to the TV canon; Sanford And Son’s theme song was a Jones original. 

But it was his work as a pop producer that truly brought Jones to the stratosphere. While working on The Wiz, Jones connected professionally with Michael Jackson, who asked for recommendations for producers to help craft his solo music. Jones landed the job himself and produced Jackson’s record Off The Wall, often regarded as the album that established Jackson as a true solo star outside the shadow of The Jackson 5. From there, their partnership created some of the most iconic musical moments—not exaggerating—in the history of music. The two are credited as the only two producers on Thriller, one of the best selling albums of all time. They reunited again to record Bad, which came out in 1987. 

Of course, the success and just how in-demand Jones was became a bit of a double-edged sword. In 2018, he recalled a nervous breakdown he suffered while working on 1985’s The Color Purple. “What happened was that I was a producer on that movie and everybody went on vacation after we finished filming — everybody except me. I had to stay home and write an hour and 55 minutes of music for the movie,” he told Vulture. “I was so fucking tired from doing that, I couldn’t see. I put too much on my plate and it took its toll.” That same year, Jones and Jackson also masterminded “We Are The World,” the star-studded song to benefit those suffering from famine in Ethiopia. The song remains an often imitated, never duplicated pop culture moment. 

In the 1990s and 2000s, Jones remained vocal and productive, but his output chilled a bit after the gangbusters success of his previous decades. His final solo album was released in 2010, and featured reworkings of his old songs with contemporary musicians like Jamie Foxx, Akon, and T-Pain. Jones later said he was not a fan of the album; “I said to them, ‘Look, you got to make the music better than we did on the originals,’” he recalled to Vulture. “That didn’t happen. T-Pain, man, he didn’t pay attention to the details.” Jones fathered seven children from five different women (he was married three times). His daughter, Rashida, is well-known today as a comedic actress. In 2018, Jones was the subject of the documentary Quincy, which also went on to win a Grammy Award. Reflecting on his career in 2018, when asked what his greatest achievement was, Jones responded: “Everything I’ve done.”