Quincy Jones, American composer, trumpeter and producer, dies at age 91

Among Music producers, the name of Quincy Jones, who died on November 3, 2024 in Los Angeles, at the age of 91, is one of the few to be known to the general public. The reason, his collaboration with Michael Jackson (1958-2009), in particular for the album Thriller, marketed at the end of November 1982. But when Quincy Jones shared all the honors with Michael Jackson during the Grammy Awards ceremony in February 1984, crowning the worldwide success of Thriller, musicians and all music professionals know that the then fifty-year-old already has a long career under his belt.

That, begun in jazz at the beginning of the 1950s, of a trumpeter, conductor, arranger and composer, notably of several dozen film scores and television show credits, also producer of multiple performance sessions. recording of stars of jazz, variety, soul or pop. In July 2014, he confided to Francis Marmande, in The World : “I feel blessed, looking at the wonderful and fruitful journey that my life has been. Growing up in Depression-era Chicago didn’t hold much promise for me. »

Born in Chicago (Illinois) on March 14, 1933, Quincy Delight Jones Jr. first lived, with his younger son, in the South Side neighborhood. His parents are employed in a residential building for the African-American lower middle class. In 1941, his mother was interned following a serious attack of schizophrenia – dying in 1999, she reappeared in the life of Quincy Jones, between periods of calm and unrest. A divorce was finalized and, in 1943, the father moved with his two boys to Bremerton (Washington State), opposite Seattle. The father’s new companion soon joined them, with her son and two daughters. The couple will have three other children.

Revelation

In a village hall, Quincy Jones, then aged 11, discovered a piano. He played a little during his childhood, listened to and sang the gospel tunes loved by his grandmother and mother. There, it is a revelation, and beyond that, that music, as he writes in his autobiography Quincy par Quincy Jones (2001, French edition in 2003, Robert Laffont), would be « [s]on destin, [s]for life.”

At the age of 11, he discovered a piano. There, it is a revelation, and beyond that, that music, as he writes in his autobiography, would be “ [s]on destin, [s]for life.”

He began playing the piano as a self-taught student, then the trumpet. A teacher notices his interest and gives him music theory lessons in exchange for hours of childcare. In 1947, the family moved to Seattle. He participates in the high school marching band. When the orchestra of pianist Count Basie (1904-1984) came to Seattle, Quincy Jones convinced trumpeter Clark Terry (1920-2015) to correct his mistakes. The start of a long friendship with Terry and Basie. Quincy Jones was also part of a semi-professional orchestra led by vibraphonist “Bumps” Blackwell (1918-1985). The pianist and singer Ray Charles (1930-2004), also soon a close friend, played with them for a time.

In 1949, this time it was towards the orchestra of vibraphonist Lionel Hampton (1908-2002), who was visiting Seattle, that Quincy Jones turned. Still too young to go on tour, he was hired in the Hampton wind section two years later. In the meantime, he obtained a scholarship to be admitted to Schillinger House in Boston (Massachusetts), which became the prestigious Berklee School of Music in 1954.

From 1951 to 1953, Quincy Jones played in Hampton’s big band, and also became one of its arrangers. Its composition Kingfish will be his first recording for the group, in October 1951. This stint with Hampton allowed Quincy Jones to progress and make himself known. From 1954 to the end of the 1960s, he wrote “hundreds of arrangements”he says in his autobiography. For advertisements, show music, little-known performers and stars. Among which, the singers Dinah Washington (1924-1963) – For Those in Love,in 1955 – and Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990), trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993), Ray Charles (1930-2004), Count Basie (1904-984) – a peak, Basie One More Timepublished in early 1959, consisting of compositions by Quincy Jones, including For Lena and Lennie, which Claude Nougaro (1929-2004) adapted into French in 1977 under the title My summer record, Frank Sinatra (1915-1998), met in 1958, whom he met several times (including It Might As Well Be Swing, in 1964, with Count Basie and his orchestra).

In the summer of 1955, Quincy Jones started his own big band. A first album, This Is How I Feel About Jazz, was published in February 1957 by ABC-Paramount, followed by Go West, Man !continuing Basie’s swing style. In April 1957, he moved to Paris, hired by the Barclay phonographic company. For almost two years, he supervised, with the in-house band, most of the recording sessions. He went several times to the pianist, conductor, composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), to improve his writing for strings, harmony, and the analysis of classical works.

Back in the United States in the early 1960s, Quincy Jones was hired by the American company Mercury Records. His first pop success, in 1963, was the production ofIt’s My Party, performed by the young singer Lesley Gore (1946-2015), and arranged by Claus Ogerman. At the head of his big band, he recorded notably Quincy Jones Plays the Hip Hits in 1963 and Golden Boy in 1964, the year he was named vice president of Mercury Records.

His contract allows him to work for other companies. For Verve, he recorded, in 1962, one of his most famous records, in the bossa fashion which then spread to jazz, Big Band Bossa Nova, with the tube Soul Bossa Nova. He found his comrade Ray Charles to Genius + Soul = Jazz (Impulse!, 1961). In 1962, it was The Girl From Greece Sings (Fontana), by Nana Mouskouri, which he produced with an orchestra conducted by Torrie Zito. He won his first Grammy Award in 1964 with the arrangement ofI Can’t Stop Loving You, of the disk This Time by Basie, by Count Basie and His Orchestra. To date, Quincy Jones has won 27 Grammy Awards, behind conductor Georg Solti (1912-1997) with 31 victories and singer Beyoncé with 32 victories.

In 1961, Quincy Jones composed his first film score, The Boy in the Tree, by the Swede Arne Sucksdorff, but it is from 1964 and that for The pawnbroker, by Sidney Lumet, that he became a regular composer for cinema and television. The most interesting: those of Thirty minutes of reprieve, and 1965, the Sydney Pollack, In the heat of the nightin 1967, by Norman Jewison (Ray Charles sings the title theme In the Heat of the Night), Gold leaves, in 1969, by Peter Collinson, Dollars, in 1971, by Richard Brooks and, still in 1971, The Anderson File, by Sidney Lumet. In 1967, the theme of the credits of the television series Ironside (The Iron Man) becomes one of his classics.

In 1969, Quincy Jones left Mercury for the phonographic company A & M Records. He remained there until 1981, his albums then being published by his own company Qwest Records, founded in 1980. It is one of the structures of a group which includes a musical publishing catalog, a production house and investment for the entertainment industry (record, television, including series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, with Will Smith, cinema, press…). Qwest TV, an on-demand music video platform, was launched in December 2017.

At A & M, Quincy Jones will record his most accomplished records in his desire to mix his jazz culture with soul, funk and pop, Walking in Space in 1969, Matari Sugar, in 1970, Smackwater Jack, in 1971 and Body Heat in 1974. That same year, 1974, he suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. He must stop playing the trumpet, touring with his orchestra and the intense pace of writing arrangements and compositions that has been his for the last twenty years.

In 1978, he supervised the music for the film The Wiz, by Sidney Lumet, film adaptation of the musical itself inspired by Wizard of Oz. Among the performers in the film, Michael Jackson, who is preparing a fifth solo album and is asking Quincy Jones to co-produce it. Off the Wall was released in August 1979. Funk, disco, pop and soul intertwine. Critical success and commercial tidal wave with nearly 15 million copies sold in the months following its publication.

« Enrecord of the year »

The duo hits even harder with Thriller (November 1982), which gave rise to seven hit singles (The Girl Is Mine, duet with Paul McCartney, Billie Jean, Beat It, Thriller…) on the nine tracks of the album. Stratospheric sales, nearly 40 million albums in the months of its release. A Grammy for “producer of the year” rewards Quincy Jones. Third and final stage of the Jackson-Jones collaboration, Bad, in August 1987 and its nine singles (I Just Can’t Stop Loving You, Bad, The Way You Make Me Feel, Smooth Criminal…) on the eleven tracks on the disc.

“Off the Wall” was released in August 1979. Funk, disco, pop and soul intertwine. Critical success and commercial tidal wave with nearly 15 million copies sold in the months following its publication.

At the beginning of 1985, while he was working on the music of The color purple, by Steven Spielberg, Quincy Jones is asked by singer Harry Belafonte and by Ken Kragen, manager of Lionel Richie and Kenny Rogers, to participate in an operation of the USA for Africa association, in order to finance the fight against famine in Africa , particularly in Ethiopia. Quincy Jones will lead the song’s recording sessions We Are the World, written by Michel Jackson and Lionel Richie, in which Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Ray Charles, Al Jarreau, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Billy Joel participate. At the Grammy Awards in 1986, We Are the World earned Quincy Jones the “Recording of the Year” award.

In 1989, while his previous album dates back to 1981, Quincy Jones still experienced a triumph with his album Back on the Block, which he likes to present as a summary of his approaches, from jazz to hip-hop. His greatest personal triumph at the Grammy Awards, in 1990, with six victories (out of seven nominations), including “album of the year”, “best rap performance”, “best jazz fusion performance” for the version of Birdland, by Joe Zawinul, and “producer of the year”.

From the 1990s, Quincy Jones mainly focused on his business. He also puts his reputation and his address book at the service of charitable foundations (research on AIDS, cancer, help for victims of sexual assault, etc.) and structures intended for the education of youth, through his Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation.

On July 8, 1991, it was he who conducted at the Montreux Jazz Festival, for his first participation in the famous Swiss festival, the imposing orchestra which played the music written by Gil Evans for Miles Davis decades earlier. This retrospective concert will be one of the last for the trumpeter, who died at the end of September of the same year. Since then, Montreux has regularly invited Quincy Jones. In 2008, he celebrated his 75th birthday there and in 2013 his 80th birthday.