“To know where you came from makes it easier for you to get where you’re going.”
Quincy Jones
Introduction
The world of music sheds a tear for one of the greatest music producers that America has ever produced. Quincy Delight Nones was a delight, a mastermind behind the careers of Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Tupac Shakur, Stevie Wonder, Donna Summer, Will Smith and many other artists. A producer with his finger on the pulse of the music scene and knew the winning formula to create a hit. Versatile, Jones saw no limits. This is a fantastic response to someone who was born into a society where black people were treated as an underclass, one where equality, love and respect went out the window. Yet, like all great people, a fire burns in their souls, determined and hell-bent on smashing the norms and creating a better world.
The Winning Signature
Quincy Jones was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1933. Born into the footprint of slavery, his father was a half-white son of a Welsh enslaver, and his mother was a descendant of enslavers. At seven, he was introduced to music early through his mother’s singing and learning to play the piano. His parents divorced, and Quincy moved to Washington with his father. In high school, he joined a band and learned to play the drums and several brass instruments. At 14, he joined another band with a 16-year-old Ray Charles. Touring the music clubs of Seattle, he backed Billie Holiday in 1948. Going on to study music at Seattle University, Jones went on to live in Boston and then New York. Touring with the jazz bandleader Lionel Hampton, he performed, playing trumpet in Elvis Presley’s band for one of his first television appearances. During this period, he first met Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.
Quincy would study in Paris, meeting Pablo Picasso, Josephine Baker and James Baldwin. At 23, he toured the Middle East and South America as Dizzy Gillespie’s musical director and arranger, yet when he tried to stage his musical, Free and Easy, a jazz musical. One that failed and ended up costing him a debt of $100,000 and bringing Jones close to suicide. To rectify this financial problem, Quincy secured a job at Mercury Records and slowly paid the debt off, arranging music for Ella Fitzgerald and Sammy Davis Jr. He also wrote film scores, including The Italian Job, In the Heat of the Night, The Getaway and The Color Purple. He also scored the music for US television programmes such as Roots, The Bill Cosby Show and Ironside.
Jones also worked closely with Frank Sinatra. A musical relationship that began in 1958. One occurred after Grace Kelly, then Princess Consort of Monaco, brought them together through a charity event. A partnership that would last until Sinatra’s last album in 1984, LA Is My Lady. He also had a career as a bandleader, working with Charlie Mingus, Art Pepper and Freddie Hubbard. A job that would follow the music trend from swing to modern pop, funk, disco and soul. He would work with George Benson and Chaka Khan.
Yet, his most significant success came with his collaboration with Michael Jackson. Thriller, Off the Wall and Bad all had his unique touch. He also worked with Jackson on an album for famine relief in Ethiopia. Jackson became very close to Quincy, and when he died in 2009, Jones said it was like losing a brother. Quincy would continue with his success, building on the phenomenon of The Colour Purple. He formed the film and TV production company Quincy Jones Entertainment in 1990. His most giant screen hit was The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which ran for 148 episodes and launched the career of Will Smith; other shows included the LL Cool J sitcom In the House and the long-running sketch comedy show MadTV. He also created the media company Qwest Broadcasting and, in 1993, the Black music magazine Vibe in partnership with Time Inc.
A key supporter of charities, Jones almost died twice. The Charles Manson cult nearly killed him. He was luckily forgetting to attend an appointment at Sharon Tate’s home. The site became the scene of a series of horrific killings. He also survived a brain aneurysm but had to give up the trumpet as it put too much pressure on his brain. Jones was married three times, including Jeri Caldwell, Ulla Andersson, and Peggy Lipton. He had seven children, including two with his later partner, Nastassja Kinski—a music mogul who leaves us at 91.
