Quincy Jones, the music titan, award-winning producer, and once a member of a Chicago gang, died at the age of 91. With a good seven decades of work under his belt, his family confirmed his death in a statement, noting that he "passed away peacefully" on Sunday night, at his home in Bel Air. According to NBC News, his family stated,
"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."
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A look at Quincy Jones's life: From humble beginnings to legendary producer and composer
Quincy Jones was most known for his collaborations on Michael Jackson's Thriller and with Frank Sinatra. He was also the proud owner of 28 Grammy Awards and 80 nominations for the same, one of which includes a Grammy Legend Award. However, little do most know that Jones was once a struggling artist with humble beginnings.
Quincy Jones was born in Chicago on March 14, 1933. Growing up, he lived in a poverty-stricken, violence-ridden side of town. In speaking in the 2018 Netflix documentary Quincy, he reflected on how he started as a member of the Chicago gangs:
"I wasn't born in Bel Air, man. I'm from the South Side of Chicago. In the '30s, man, during the Depression, damn, you kidding? We lost my mother when I was seven, and my brother and I, we were like street rats. I wanted to be a gangster 'til I was 11. You want to be what you see, and that's all we ever saw."
It was his mother, who often suffered mental breakdowns, who introduced him to the world of music with her religious songs. He spoke about where it all started for him during a 2005 interview with PBS:
"When I was five or six, back in Chicago, there was this lady named Lucy Jackson who used to play stride piano in the apartment next door, and I listened to her all the time right through the walls."
When he was 18, in 1951, he was enrolled at Seattle University with a full ride, but just one semester later, he moved to the Berklee College of Music in Boston with another scholarship. It was there that he kickstarted his career as a trumpeter, arranger, and pianist when he began touring.
The first of many, he began touring with bandleader Lionel Hampton at the tender age of 20. They traversed Europe, and it was this part of his life that transformed his perceptions of racism in the US. In speaking about the same, he once said, as reported by Achievement.org,
"It gave you some sense of perspective on past, present, and future. It took the myopic conflict between just black and white in the United States and put it on another level because you saw the turmoil between the Armenians and the Turks, and the Cypriots and the Greeks, and the Swedes and the Danes, and the Koreans and the Japanese. "
He continued,
"Everybody had these hassles, and you saw it was a basic part of human nature, these conflicts. It opened my soul; it opened my mind."
He relocated to New York during that time and began arranging and recording for major names like Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Dinah Washington, effectively propelling his career to new heights.
By 1957, he decided to carry his music education forward in Paris by studying under Nadia Boulanger's guidance, a famous Parisian tutor who taught well-known composers like Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copeland. Not long after, he assumed the role of music director at Barclay, a local record company.
From there, his career took him to new roles, garnering him several accolades and ground-breaking titles along the way, including being the first African American to hold the position of vice president of Mercury.
Some of his Quincy Jones' credits throughout his career include They Call Me Mister, Mackenna's Gold, Walk, Don't Run, The Deadly Affair, In the Heat of the Night, The Italian Job, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Anderson Tapes, Cactus Flower, The Out-of-Towners, Tibbs!, $ (Dollars), and The Getaway.
Quincy Jones is survived by his daughters, Rashida Jones, Jolie Jones Levine, Rachel Jones, Martina Jones, Kidada Jones, and Kenya Kinski-Jones. He also leaves behind his son Quincy Jones III, brother Richard Jones, and sisters Theresa Frank and Margie Jay.
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