Jones, Quincy

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Jones, Quincy

March 14, 1933

The music producer and composer Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born in Chicago and learned to play the trumpet in the public schools in Seattle, Washington, where his family moved in 1945. Jones sang in church groups from an early age, and he wrote his first composition at the age of sixteen. While in high school he played trumpet in rhythm-and-blues groups with his friend Ray Charles (1930–2004). After graduating from high school, Jones attended Seattle University, after which he enrolled in the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He traveled with Jay McShann's band before being hired by Lionel Hampton (1908–2002) in 1951. Jones toured Europe with Hampton and soloed on the band's recording of his own composition, "Kingfish" (1951).

After leaving Hampton in 1953, Jones, who had an undistinguished solo style on trumpet, turned to studio composing and arranging, working with Ray Anthony, Tommy Dorsey, and Hampton. During the 1950s, Jones also led his own big bands on albums such as This Is How I Feel About Jazz (1956). In 1956 Jones helped the trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie (1917–1993) organize his first State Department big band. From 1956 to 1960 he worked as the music director for Barclay Records in Paris, where he also studied arranging with the renowned teacher Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979). He also worked with Count Basie, Charles Aznavour, Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, and Horace Silver, and he led a big band for recording sessions such as The Birth of a Band (1959). Jones served as music director for Harold Arlen's blues opera Free and Easy on its European tour. Back in the United States in the early 1960s, Jones devoted his time to studio work, attaining an almost ubiquitous presence in the Los Angeles and New York music scenes.

Jones began working as a producer at Mercury Records in 1961. After producing Leslie Gore's hit record "It's My Party" (1963), he became Mercury's first African-American vice president in 1964. He increasingly made use of popular dance rhythms and electric instruments. In 1964 he also scored and conducted an album for Frank Sinatra and Count Basie, It Might As Well Be Swing. He recorded with his own ensembles, often in a rhythm-andblues or pop-jazz idiom, on albums such as The Quintessence (1961), Golden Boy (1964), Walking in Space (1969), and Smackwater Jack (1971). Jones also branched out into concert music with his Black Requiem, a work for orchestra (1971). Jones was the first African-American film composer to be widely accepted in Hollywood, and he scored dozens of films, including The Pawnbroker (1963), Walk, Don't Run (1966), and In Cold Blood (1967).

In 1974, shortly after recording Body Heat, Jones suffered a cerebral stroke and underwent brain surgery. After recovering he formed his own record company, Qwest Productions. Throughout the 1970s Jones remained in demand as an arranger and composer. He also wrote or arranged music for television shows (Ironside, The Bill Cosby Show, the miniseries Roots, and Sanford and Son ), and for films (The Wiz, 1978). During the 1980s Jones expanded his role in the film business. In 1985 he co-produced and wrote the music for the film The Color Purple and served as executive music producer for Sidney Poitier's film Fast Forward (1985).

Jones's eclectic approach to music, and his ability to combine gritty rhythms with elegant urban textures, is perhaps best exemplified by his long association with Michael Jackson. Their collaborations on Off The Wall (1979) and Thriller (1984) resulted in two of the most popular recordings of all time. Jones also produced Jackson's Bad (1987). During this time, Jones epitomized the crossover phenomenon by maintaining connections with many types of music. His eclectic 1982 album The Dude won a Grammy Award, and in 1983 he conducted a big band as part of a tribute to Miles Davis at Radio City Music Hall. The next year he produced and conducted on Frank Sinatra's recording, L.A. Is My Lady. He conceived of USA for Africa, a famine relief organization that produced the album and video We Are The World (1985). In 1991 Jones appeared with Davis at one of the trumpeter's last major concerts, in Montreux, Switzerland, a performance that was released on album and video in 1993 as Miles and Quincy Live at Montreux. During this time Jones also continued to work with classical music, and in 1992 he released Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebratio n.

By 1994, with twenty-two Grammy Awards to his credit, Jones had become the most honored popular musician in the history of the awards. He also wielded enormous artistic and financial power and influence in the entertainment industry and was a masterful discoverer of new talent. In 1990 his album Back on the Block, which included Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald in addition to younger African-American musicians such as Ice-T and Kool Moe Dee, won six Grammy awards. He continued to expand his activities into the print media, including the magazine Vibe, aimed primarily at a youthful African-American readership. He also produced the hit television series Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which began in 1990. That same year Jones was the subject of a video biography, Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones.

Jones won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1995 and the Henry Mancini and Oscar Micheaux Awards in 1999. In 2001 Jones published Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones. Celebrities and musicians paid tribute to Jones in October 2004 at the United Negro College Fund's "Evening of Stars," honoring his lifetime achievements and commitment to helping others.