Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Quincy Jones, the US musician, media mogul and producer of some of the world’s top-selling albums including Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Bad and Off the Wall, has died aged 91.
His publicist, Arnold Robinson, said Jones “passed away peacefully” on Sunday night at his home in Bel Air, a neighbourhood in Los Angeles that he helped cement in popular culture as producer of the hit TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
In doing so, Jones helped create the career of actor and musician Will Smith, who starred in and sang the theme tune to the hit US sitcom. Jones’s career spanned more than 75 years, winning 28 Grammy awards and working on dozens of hit songs, albums, movies, film scores and TV shows.
Growing up in an often dangerous Chicago in the 1930s, he discovered music and was in his first band by the age of 15 with Ray Charles, one of the many illustrious musicians he played with in an early career dominated by his love of jazz. He toured with artists such as Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Lionel Hampton as well as leading his own big band jazz group during the 1950s across Europe.
His star power was such that by the 1960s he was working with his close friend Frank Sinatra, and he became the first black vice-president at a record label. He also was chosen as the first black musical director for the Academy Awards ceremony in 1971.
The media mogul dominated the music industry in the US in the 1980s thanks to his work on Jackson’s hit record, Thriller, which went on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time. Jones worked closely with Jackson to create the era-defining mix of disco, rock funk, pop and R&B that feature in his best-known songs.
Jones told David Letterman with a knowing smile in 1985 that he “just got lucky” with the albums, but by then he was a noted hitmaker over several decades with artists such as Ella Fitzgerald and Sinatra.
Jones would say that the numbers he liked the least were two, six and 11, because he always wanted to be number one — or in the top five or top 10.
In 1985, Jones produced the charity record We Are The World for famine relief in Africa, telling the dozens of musicians who feature on the song to “park your ego at the door” as he decided who would be given the solos to sing.
He helped produce a number of popular films, including The Color Purple in 1985, which received 11 Oscar nominations and starred Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. He composed and arranged the soundtracks to dozens more films, including The Italian Job, the 1969 film starring Michael Caine.
Jones knew and befriended many of the popular acts of the 20th century but rarely pulled his punches, once telling an interviewer from Vulture that the Beatles were the “worst musicians in the world” when he first heard them play. “Paul was the worst bass player I ever heard,” he said. “And Ringo? Don’t even talk about it.”
He counted business leaders such as Microsoft’s Paul Allen, who he said could play guitar like Jimmy Hendrix, top musicians such as Bono and world leaders including Bill Clinton — for whom he organised his inaugural celebration — as close friends.
Jones founded the media group Qwest Broadcasting.
Jones married three times, and had seven children including actor Rashida Jones. His family said in a statement on Monday morning: “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.”
