Quincy Jones, musical maestro and entertainment industry titan, dies at 91

He produced Michael Jackson’s smash document “Thriller,” in addition to Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of “The Colour Purple” and the NBC sitcom “The Contemporary Prince of Bel-Air” — initiatives that helped bolster his legacy as a hit-maker and media mogul.

Jones obtained quite a few awards and accolades, together with recognition on the John F. Kennedy Middle Honors in 2001, a Nationwide Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2010 and induction into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame in 2013. In 2021, he joined James Brown and Otis Redding as one of many first three “foundational inductees” of the Black Music & Leisure Stroll of Fame in Atlanta.

“As a grasp inventor of musical hybrids, he has blended pop, soul, hip-hop, jazz, classical, African, and Brazilian music into many dazzling fusions, traversing nearly each medium, together with data, stay performances, films and tv,” Obama mentioned in his remarks.

Jones received 28 Grammys, placing him third on the checklist of all-time winners. He nabbed an Emmy in 1977 for writing the theme for the primary episode of the miniseries “Roots” and later obtained the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award on the Oscars in 1994.

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born in Chicago on March 14, 1933, the son of Quincy Delight Jones, a semiprofessional baseball participant and carpenter, and Sarah Frances, a financial institution officer and residence complicated supervisor.

Jones was first uncovered to music by his mom, who sang spiritual songs. She later suffered a schizophrenic breakdown; Jones’ dad and mom finally divorced, and his father remarried.

Within the early Forties, Jones and his household relocated to Bremerton, Washington, the place he studied the trumpet and labored with a fledgling pianist/singer by the identify of Ray Charles, who was mentioned to have helped persuade Jones to pursue his curiosity within the musical arts.

Jones studied briefly on the eminent Schillinger Home (now generally known as the Berklee School of Music) in Boston within the Nineteen Fifties. He then began touring with the jazz nice Lionel Hampton as a trumpeter and arranger.