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Quincy Jones Dead at 91!

😲 😭

www.theguardian.com

Quincy Jones, producer and entertainment powerhouse, dies aged 91

Widely and wildly talented musician and industry mogul worked with Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Will Smith and others
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

"Quincy Jones, a titan of American entertainment who worked with stars from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson and Will Smith, has died aged 91.

Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson, said he died on Sunday night at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, 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 was arguably the most versatile pop cultural figure of the 20th century, perhaps best known for producing the albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad for Michael Jackson in the 1980s, which made the singer the biggest pop star of all time. Jones also produced music for Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer and many others.

He was also a successful composer of dozens of film scores, and had numerous chart hits under his own name. Jones was a bandleader in big band jazz, an arranger for jazz stars including Count Basie, and a multi-instrumentalist, most proficiently on trumpet and piano. His TV and film production company, founded in 1990, had major success with the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and other shows, and he continued to innovate well into his 80s, launching Qwest TV in 2017, an on-demand music TV service. Jones is third only to Beyoncé and Jay-Z for having the most Grammy award nominations of all time – 80 to their 88 each – and is the awards’ third most-garlanded winner, with 28."
 
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Here are some excerpts from the RS piece. :cry:

www.rollingstone.com

Quincy Jones, Peerless Music Producer Behind 'Thriller,' Dead at 91

Quincy Jones, the musician-producer whose work was on several of the biggest pop LPs of the century, has died at 91.
www.rollingstone.com www.rollingstone.com

"Quincy Jones, a musical polymath who contributed to remarkable albums in jazz, soul, and funk as well as several of the biggest pop LPs of the century – most notably producing Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad albums – died at his home in Bel Air, California on Sunday, Nov. 3. He was 91 years old.

Jones was at home in nearly every branch of popular music: During a career that spanned seven decades and included work as a trumpet player, composer, arranger, producer, conductor and scorer, his work touched on big-band jazz, bebop, gospel, blues, soul, funk, Quiet Storm R&B, disco, rock and rap. He is best known for his involvement with Jackson, which brought an unparalleled level of musical dexterity to several of the most popular albums of all time and helped redefine what it meant to be a pop star.

But by the time Jones got to Jackson he had already carved a path through jazz and early Sixties bubblegum pop and numerous film scores, studied with the famous classical composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, arranged records for Ray Charles and conducted Frank Sinatra’s band. Few musicians in history have enjoyed such a richly varied career and success in as many arenas. Speaking with Rolling Stone in 2017, Jones presented his creative restlessness as part of a life-long commitment to learning as much about music as he possibly could. “You gotta hope you can make all the mistakes you can so you learn,” he said. “I made all the mistakes. All of ’em.”

An outsider might beg to differ – Jones had an unerring ear for great voices, and many of the finest singers in pop history appeared to love what he could do with their voice in the studio. As a result, Jones collaborated with Betty Carter, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Little Richard, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, Minnie Ripperton, Al Jarreau, Luther Vandross, Chaka Khan, Michael Jackson, James Ingram and Tamia, among others.

Jones was famous for searching through hundreds and hundreds of demos before settling on the right song for an artist, and once the tune was selected, he brought his formidable musical background to the recording sessions. “Normally you put three-part background vocals on the track, and it sounds good,” Stephen Bray, who wrote and produced for Madonna in the Eighties, told Rolling Stone in 2017. “You go with a more-or-less gospel approach: a fifth or a third of a chord singing behind the melody. If you listen to the backgrounds on [Jackson’s] Bad, not only are you getting those, you’re getting sevenths, you’re getting ninths and elevenths. In less experienced hands, it would sound like mud, but they managed to put in five-note chords. They got background vocals that sound like nothing we had ever heard before in that context.”

Whether creating a pop smash or a TV score, Jones was always staunchly committed to forward-thinking production. Most producers settle in and stop evolving at some point, developing a recognizable sound, but Jones was never one to get stuck in the past and dismissed as a revivalist, which helps explain why he was involved with Number One singles in three different decades. “We had the first Fender Bass in 1953 – without a Fender Bass connected to an electric guitar from 1939, there’d be no rock & roll or Motown,” he told Rolling Stone. “We did jazz records with it at first, one called “Work of Art” by Art Farmer on Prestige Records. And my Ironside theme is the first time the public ever heard a synthesizer.”

Later, when recording with Jackson, Jones also employed the latest keyboard and programming technology to make propulsive records that still cut through at radio three decades later. “Quincy’s philosophy was an outhouse bottom with a penthouse view,” Whitney Houston producer Narada Michael Walden told Rolling Stone in 2017. “It’s gotta have a stank on the bottom, and then be pretty with a skyline view on top. Then you can play it in the bar, the club, the yacht. It works everywhere.

Long before Jones figured out how to make juggernaut singles and became one of the most decorated musicians in history, with 28 Grammy awards and a record 79 nominations, he grew up poor on the violent South Side of Chicago. He was born there on March 14th, 1933, during the height of the Great Depression. His mother suffered from mental illness and was sent to an asylum when Jones was young. Jones and his younger brother Lloyd lived for a time in their grandmother’s electricity-less shack in Louisville, KY before returning to Chicago. Then they following their father, a carpenter, out to Washington State, where he moved to work on a U.S. naval base during the Second World War.

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But one of Jones’ final film projects brought him close to Michael Jackson: He oversaw much of the music in the film adaptation of The Wiz, which starred Diana Ross and Jackson. Jones and Jackson became friends on set, and as Jackson was preparing to make his debut as a solo act after a highly successful run in the Jackson 5, Jones proposed that they work together. Epic Records did not initially like this idea. “The word was: ‘Quincy Jones is too jazzy, and has only produced dance hits with the Brothers Johnson,'” he writes in Q. But Jackson demanded Jones, and Epic relented.

This led to one of the most fruitful musical partnerships in history. Jones produced Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad, which together resulted in 17 Top 10 hits on the Hot 100, including nine Number Ones, and sold more than 50 million units in the U.S., according to the RIAA. Jones put a team of crack musicians and songwriters and the most modern musical technology behind Jackson, resulting in stunningly sophisticated, rhythmically explosive hits. “It was this convergence of the most advanced technology in the known universe at your disposal mixed with old-school musicality,” said Madonna collaborator Stephen Bray ..."
 
I know some MJ fans have had their issues with Q in more recent years (Myself included) but there's no denying that the man was an incredible talent and a genius.

Q was the one who recommended Rod Temperton to Michael which led to classics like Rock With You, Thriller and the beautiful Lady In My Life.

RIP, Quincy.
 
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R.I.P. Q

No matter what some MJ fans think of Q andhis comments in his later years, he is one of the biggest legends in musical history.

He has made some of the best sounding music ever. - I am a huge Frank Sinatra fan too - and Q has a huge impact on that too.

Great legacy - great producer.
 
analogue said:
I know some MJ fans have had their issues with Q in more recent years (Myself included) but there's no denying that the man was an incredible talent and a genius.

Q was the one who recommended Rod Temperton to Michael which led to classics like Rock With You, Thriller and the beautiful Lady In My Life.

RIP, Quincy.
Click to expand...
You said it perfectly. I had issues with him, but his contribution to Michael's phenomenal worldwide success, especially as a solo artist, is appreciated.
 
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