Quincy Jones learned the hard way that music and the music business differ
Before Thriller and We Are the World, Quincy Jones led what he called the best jazz band on the planet, and went broke doing it. That failure taught him a lesson he never forgot, and over seven decades he collected 28 Grammys while producing some of the biggest records ever made.
Born on Chicago's South Side in 1933, he first heard music through the wall as a neighbour played stride piano; once he got onto her instrument, she could not pry him off. His family moved to the Seattle area during the war, and at fourteen he was gigging around the Northwest behind Billie Holiday and Billy Eckstine. He also befriended a teenage Ray Charles. Scholarships took him to Seattle University and then to what is now Berklee in Boston.
At 20 he toured Europe with Lionel Hampton, an experience he said widened his view of racism by showing him that conflict between groups existed everywhere. In 1956 he played second trumpet in the studio band backing Elvis Presley's first six television appearances. He studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen, then formed an 18-piece big band that dazzled audiences but could not pay its way. Mercury's chief rescued him with a loan and a job, and by 1961 Jones was the label's first African American vice-president.
Hits followed across genres. He produced It's My Party for Lesley Gore, arranged and conducted for Frank Sinatra with Count Basie, and wrote nearly 40 film scores, starting with The Pawnbroker, plus TV themes such as Sanford and Son. His 1962 Soul Bossa Nova later became the Austin Powers theme. Sinatra left him a ring he said he never took off.
His collaboration with Michael Jackson produced Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad. In 1985 he produced and conducted We Are the World for Ethiopian famine relief and scored The Color Purple, later winning a Tony for its 2016 revival. He died in November 2024 at 91, and an honorary Oscar was awarded after his death.
Source: Quincy Jones
