Quincy Jones, legendary musician and entertainment industry icon, dies at 91

According to his spokespeople, Quincy Jones, a musical legend who produced and composed music for artists ranging from Michael Jackson to Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra, has passed away. He was ninety-one.

According to his spokesman, Arnold Robinson, Jones "passed away peacefully" on Sunday night at his Bel Air home, surrounded by his family.

“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing,” the Jones family said in the 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. 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.”

As an arranger, composer, songwriter, and singer, Jones built a solid reputation as a behind-the-scenes power and a talented artist in his own right throughout the course of a fruitful career that lasted more than 70 years.

He worked with some of the most renowned artists in the American songbook, including Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, Dinah Washington, and Count Basie. He made lasting impressions on jazz, pop, hip-hop, and scores of movie and television soundtracks.

Jones was recognized at the John F. Kennedy Center Honors in 2001, awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama in 2010, and inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, among many other honors and recognitions. He became one of the first three "foundational inductees" on the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame in Atlanta in 2021, together with Otis Redding and James Brown.

Jones is third on the list of all-time Grammy winners with 28 wins. He won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1994 Oscars after winning an Emmy in 1977 for penning the theme for the first episode of the miniseries "Roots."

The son of Quincy Delight Jones, a carpenter and semiprofessional baseball player, and Sarah Frances, a bank officer and apartment complex manager, Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born in Chicago on March 14, 1933.

Jones and his family moved to Bremerton, Washington, in the early 1940s, where he studied the trumpet and worked with Ray Charles, a young pianist and singer who reportedly encouraged Jones to follow his passion for music.

He eventually gained recognition as a talented independent arranger. He collaborated with a number of jazz greats, including Dinah Washington, Oscar Pettiford, Clifford Brown, Gigi Gryce (later known as Basheer Qusim), Cannonball Adderley, and Count Basie.

In 1956, he went on a Middle East and South American tour with Dizzy Gillespie's big band and made his first album as a bandleader.

After a stint with the Paris-based Barclay record company, he led an all-star big band for the European run of Harold Arlen's two-act "blues opera," "Free and Easy."

In 1961, Jones came back to the United States and joined Mercury Records as an artists-and-repertoire director. He became one of the first Black Americans to hold an executive-level position at a major U.S. record company when he was promoted to vice president three years later.

Leslie Gore's 1963 single "It's My Party," which peaked at number one, was his first pop hit. During his tenure with the label, Jones also collaborated with artists including Sinatra and Peggy Lee.

In the same year, he won the first of what would be many Grammys for his arrangement of the song "I Can't Stop Loving You" by the Count Basie Band.

Jones also started writing movie soundtracks in the 1960s, such as "In Cold Blood" and "In the Heat of the Night."

From 1969 to 1981, he worked for A&M Records before starting his own record label, Qwest.

1982. When Jones produced Jackson's best-selling album "Thriller," it was one of his most well-known collaborations.

In 1974, Jones had to temporarily reduce his workload due to a brain aneurysm.

He has seven children and three marriages over the years.

From 1957 until 1966, Jones was wed to Jeri Caldwell, his high school sweetheart. The pair produced a daughter named Jolie.

He wed Swedish model Ulla Andersson in 1967, and the two of them had two kids, Martina and Quincy Jones III, before splitting up in 1974.

In the same year, Jones wed actress Peggy Lipton. The two of them had two daughters, Rashida Jones and Kidada Jones, and their marriage lasted until 1990.

He also had two daughters: fashion model Kenya Kinski-Jones with actress Nastassja Kinski and Rachel with dancer Carol Reynolds.

Jones considered the core of his life's work in his 2022 book, "12 Notes On Life and Creativity."