AMERICA : Reuters reported that Quincy Jones, who collaborated with Michael Jackson to reshape pop music and had a significant impact on American music through his collaborations with Count Basie and Frank Sinatra, passed away on Sunday at the age of 91.
In the presence of his family, Jones gave his final breath at his residence in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles.
In a statement provided to The Guardian, the family stated, “Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing.” And despite the fact that this is a tremendous loss for our family, we commemorate the wonderful life he led and are certain that there will never be another like him.
From Grammy-studded accomplishments to pivotal work in music creation and movies, Jones’ vocation crossed more than 70 years.
His upbringing in Chicago in 1933 was marked by struggle. However, he developed a keen interest in music while growing up in Washington. He was performing in Seattle’s clubs with a young Ray Charles by the time he was 14 years old. After that, he went to Seattle University and Boston to study music. After that, he moved to New York, where he played trumpet in Elvis Presley’s band and got to know jazz greats like Miles Davis and Charlie Parker.
He rose to prominence through his early work as a trumpeter and later as an arranger and bandleader. He also learned more about music and connected with cultural icons like Pablo Picasso and Josephine Baker while he was in Europe in the 1950s.
Jones was at the forefront of pop, jazz, funk, and R&B throughout his career. He orchestrated funk projects with Rufus and Chaka Khan and the Brothers Johnson and produced numerous chart-topping hits, including “Give Me the Night” by George Benson and “Baby Come to Me” by Patti Austin and James Ingram. He recorded four hits for Lesley Gore that sold millions of copies in the 1960s, including the well-known “It’s My Party.”
Jones was a pioneer in film and television, scoring films like The Italian Job, In the Heat of the Night, and The Color Purple, for which he was nominated for three out of seven Oscars. In 1968, he became the first African American to be nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards.
His scores for The Bill Cosby Show and Ironside can be found on television.
In 1958, Jones also collaborated with Frank Sinatra. Their collaboration included Sinatra’s final album, LA Is My Lady, released in 1984. However, his collaboration with Michael Jackson is what established him as a cultural icon.
