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Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra's producer, was 91 years old

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Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra's producer, was 91 years old

Kristin McGrath
| USA TODAY

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Quincy Jones, best known as the architect of Michael Jackson's “Thriller” and the man who collide stars in 1985's “We Are the World,” had a long career as a composer and trumpeter who broke racial barriers in music and film.

Jones died Sunday, his publicist said. He was 91.

Jones won an astonishing 27 Grammy Awards throughout his career as an arranger and producer, and his legacy intersects with that of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Lesley Gore.

He was born on March 14, 1933 to Sarah and Quincy Delight Jones and grew up with his younger brother Lloyd in gang-ravaged Chicago during the Great Depression. His mother suffered from mental illness and was institutionalized when he was five, and his father moved the family to Bremerton, Washington.

When he was 11 years old, Jones broke into the Armory recreation center in Bremerton to steal food. Inside he found a piano. As he later said in interviews, this was the moment that took him from a childhood of petty crime to a life of music.

His chance encounter with the piano led Jones to try out various instruments before settling on the trumpet. At 14, he was playing in clubs with his 16-year-old friend Ray Charles, moving from jazz to big band and bebop. After high school, Jones toured the world with jazz greats Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie.

This turbulent life as a traveling musician brought Jones back to the USA, where he failed in 1961. He paid off his debts at Mercury Records, where he was eventually promoted to vice president of the otherwise white company.

When Jones was lured to Hollywood in 1965 by dreams of scoring films, executives were shocked to learn he was black after casting him in Gregory Peck's film “Mirage.” He soon received two Academy Award nominations (Best Original Song for “The Love of Ivy” and Best Original Score for the Film “In Cold Blood”) in 1968 and became the first black music director at the Academy Awards in 1971. He executive produced the show in 1996.

Nevertheless, Jones suffered from health problems. In 1974 he suffered two near-fatal brain aneurysms. The resulting metal plate in his head ensured that he would never play the trumpet again. Still, he continued making music, composing “The Bill Cosby Show,” “Sanford and Son,” and the 1977 miniseries “Roots,” for which he won an Emmy.

Then Jones met Michael Jackson while scoring the film “The Wiz.” He produced Jackson's “Off the Wall” album in 1979 and rose to music royalty alongside the King of Pop in a partnership that also produced the mega-sellers “Thriller” and “Bad.” In 1985, the two collaborated on the star-studded charity song “We Are the World,” which won three Grammys.

Star power of “We are the World” remains unmatched: Inside the dramatic 1-night recording

He co-produced “The Color Purple” and helped introduce Oprah Winfrey to a national audience (he also produced the Broadway version). In 2013, Jones was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Winfrey.

His name appears as a producer, composer, conductor, arranger or performer on more than 400 albums. He composed around 35 film scores.

Jones is survived by seven children: Jolie Jones Levine (with her former wife, actress Jeri Caldwell), Martina Jones and Quincy Jones III (with her second wife, model Ulla Andersson), Kidada Jones and “The Office” actress Rashida Jones ( with her third wife, “Mod Squad” actress Peggy Lipton), Rachel Jones (with Carol Reynolds) and Kenya Julia Miambi Sarah Jones (with actress Nastassja Kinski).

In his later years, the force that transformed Jones from jazz musician to music mogul never seemed to die out. He founded the production company responsible for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In 2001 he published an autobiography. After the Haiti earthquake in 2010, he collaborated with Lionel Richie for a second episode of We Are The World.

In 2018, daughter Rashida and director Alan Hicks chronicled Jones' generational and genre-spanning career in the Netflix documentary Quincy. Rashida called the two-hour film “a starter pack” and said she shot 800 hours of footage and worked through 2,000 hours of archival footage.

Netflix documentary “Quincy Jones.” can barely contain his shockingly successful career

“He lived such a great life,” Rashida told USA TODAY in a joint interview with Jones at the time. “I just can’t believe that all of these experiences are contained in this one person, who happens to be my father.”

Jones, who admitted to crying every time he saw the film, said the message of his life was expressed in the film: family, love and maintaining perspective.

“Never give up,” he said. “Keep humility with creativity. And the grace with success. Just because you’re behind a No. 1 record doesn’t make you better than anyone else.”

This story has been updated to include additional information.

Contributors: Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY; Reuters

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