Legendary producer, music executive, and composer Quincy Jones has died, aged 91.
The AP reports that Jones died Sunday night (November 3) at his home in Los Angeles, surrounded by his family.
In an influential music career spanning seven decades, Quincy Jones worked as a composer, record producer, artist, arranger, conductor, instrumentalist, label executive, film & TV producer, magazine founder, multi-media entrepreneur, and humanitarian.
He earned 80 Grammy Award nominations, including 28 wins across various categories: jazz, R&B, pop, rap, spoken word, children’s, cast album, instrumental arrangement, music film, and music video, not to mention Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Producer of the Year.
Jones’ career also saw him collaborate with Michael Jackson, producing some of the late pop star’s biggest-selling albums, including Off the Wall (1979) and Thriller (1982), as well as Bad (1987).
In 1968, he made history as the first African American to be nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year.
In 1985, Quincy Jones co-produced and wrote the music for Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, which garnered 11 Oscar nominations.
In 2010, he was bestowed with the National Medal of Arts, the country’s highest artistic honor. And in 2013, at the age of 80, Quincy Jones was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Oprah Winfrey, who presented him with the Ahmet Ertegun Award.
In 2023, Quincy Jones received the first-ever Peace Through Music Award from Recording Academy and US State Department. Music Business Worldwide
