Music titan Quincy Jones dies aged 91
Tributes are pouring in for music producer Quincy Jones after he passed away on Monday, aged 91, as ITV News' Arts Editor Nina Nannar reports
The music titan Quincy Jones, whose legacy ranged from producing Michael Jackson's Thriller album to collaborating with Frank Sinatra, has died aged 91.
The music producer and composer's career spanned more than 70 years in which he worked with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry.
His publicist, Arnold Robinson, said he died at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles on Sunday surrounded by his family.
"Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing," the family said in a statement.
"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."
Jones rose from running with gangs on the South Side of Chicago to the very heights of show business, becoming one of the first black executives to thrive in Hollywood and amassing an extraordinary musical catalogue.
He toured with Count Basie and Lionel Hampton, arranged records for Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, composed the soundtracks for "Roots" and "In the Heat of the Night," organised President Bill Clinton's first inaugural celebration and oversaw the all-star recording of “We Are the World,” the 1985 charity record for famine relief in Africa.
Lionel Richie, who co-wrote We Are the World and was among the featured singers, called him “the master orchestrator.”
Jones’ versatility and imagination helped set off the explosive talents of Jackson as he transformed from child star to the King of Pop.
On such classic tracks as Billie Jean and Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, Jones and Jackson fashioned a global soundscape out of disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B and jazz and African chants.
For Thriller, some of the most memorable touches originated with Jones, who recruited Eddie Van Halen for a guitar solo on the genre-fusing Beat It and brought in Vincent Price for a ghoulish voiceover on the title track.
Thriller sold more than 20 million copies in 1983 alone and has contended with the Eagles’ Greatest Hits 1971-1975 among others as the best-selling album of all time.
“If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says ‘it was the producers fault’; so if it does well, it should be your ‘fault,’ too,” Jones said in an interview with the Library of Congress in 2016.
“The tracks don’t just all of a sudden appear. The producer has to have the skill, experience and ability to guide the vision to completion.”
Jones won 28 Grammy Awards, a Grammy Legend Award in 1991, two honorary Academy Awards and an Emmy for "Roots".
He also received France’s Legion d’Honneur, the Rudolph Valentino Award from the Republic of Italy and a Kennedy Center tribute for his contributions to American culture.
He was the subject of a 1990 documentary Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones and a 2018 film by daughter Rashida Jones.
In 2001, he published his memoir, Q, and became a best-selling author.
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