Quincy Jones dead: Music icon who worked with Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, dies at 91(Image: Getty Images for EJAF)

Quincy Jones dead: Music icon who worked with Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, dies at 91

Music icon and record producer Quincy Jones, who worked with Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, has died aged 91

by · The Mirror

Record producer and songwriter Quincy Jones has died aged 91.

He was known for his work with music icons Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and more. His publicist, Arnold Robinson, announced the heartbreaking news of his death and said he passed away on Sunday night at his home in Bel Air.

Quincy was surrounded by family when he died. The statement from his family read: "Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones' passing. 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.”

The talented producer, who became one of the first Black executives to thrive in Hollywood and amassed a huge musical catalogue, worked on Michael Jackson's historic 'Thriller' album. He arranged records for the likes of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzegerald and composed the soundtracks for Roots and In the Heat of the Night.

Quincy Jones died aged 91( Image: Getty Images)
He worked with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson( Image: WireImage)

Not only was he a successful composer of dozens of film scores and had many chart hits, he was also a bandleader in big band jazz, an arranger for jazz stars including Count Basie, and a multi-instrumentalist - with him playing the trumpet and piano. His TV and film production company, founded in 1990, was successful with the series, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and many other shows.

Quincy also organised President Bill Clinton's first inaugural celebration. The songwriter and composer oversaw the iconic recording of the 1985 charity record for famine relief in Africa, We Are The World. Singer Lionel Richie previously called him the "master orchestrator".

His career, which began when records were still played on vinyl at 78 rpm, saw his greatest accolades likely come from his productions with Jackson: Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad were albums that had a near-universal style and appeal. Quincy’s versatility and creativity helped ignite the explosive talents of Jackson as he transitioned from child star to the "King of Pop."

On such classic tracks as Billie Jean and Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, Quincy and Michael crafted a global soundscape out of disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B, jazz and African chants. Quincy was the person who enlisted Eddie Van Halen for a quitar solo Beat It and used Vincent Price's voice for the voiceover in Thriller.

Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones in 1994( Image: WireImage)

The hit album quickly rose up the charts in 1983, selling more than 20 million copies and has been vying with the Eagles' "Greatest Hits 1971-1975" for the title of best-selling album ever. Quincy once talked about his role in a conversation with the Library of Congress in 2016. He stated: "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."

He also said: "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." Quincy was born on March 14, 1933, to a bank officer and a semi-professional baseball player. He rose to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor before working on pop music and film scores.

When his parents got divorced, he moved with his father to Washington State where he learned how to play the drums and a few brass instruments in his high school bands When he was 14 years old, he started playing in a band with a 16-year-old Ray Charles in Seattle clubs and even backed Billie Holiday in 1948.

Quincy won 28 Grammy Awards in his lifetime( Image: Getty Images North America)

The music legend studied music at Seattle University before transferring east to continue in Boston. He later moved to New York after being rehired by jazz bandleader Lionel Hampton (with whom he had toured as a highschooler).

In 1968, he became the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for The Eyes of Love from the film Banning. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on In Cold Blood in 1967. It made him the first African American to be nominated twice in the same year. He went on to produce Michael Jackson's three successful albums, Jckson: Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad.

He became the first African American to be the musical director and conductor of the Academy Awards in 1971 and was the first African American to receive the academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1995. He is tied with Willie D. Burton for the second most Oscar-nominated African American, with them both having seven nominations.

The star was third only to Beyoncé and Jay-Z for having the most Grammy Award nominations of all time – with 80 to their 88 each – and is the Grammy’s third most-awarded winner, with 28 awards.

Quincy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Ahmet Ertegun Award category in 2013 and was also named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time Magazine.

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