Quincy Jones, Legendary Producer and Composer, Dead at 91

Quincy Jones, whose 70-year career in show business included noteworthy work as a music producer, bandleader, composer, arranger and producer of various films and television shows, has passed away at the age of 91.

According to Arnold Robinson, Jones’s publicist, Jones died at his home in Bel Air, California on Sunday night, surrounded by family.

“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing. And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him,” his family said in a statement. “He is truly one of a kind and we will miss him dearly; we take comfort and immense pride in knowing that the love and joy, that were the essence of his being, was shared with the world through all that he created. Through his music and his boundless love, Quincy Jones’ heart will beat for eternity.”

Jones’s career spans genres, from jazz and R&B to pop, funk, disco and even hip-hop. Throughout his long career, he worked with everyone from Ray Charles (whom he befriended at age 14) and Count Basie to Leslie Gore and Frank Sinatra. He’s perhaps best known for producing Michael Jackson’s most popular albums — Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad. He composed the scores for countless films, including In the Heat of the Night, The Italian Job and The Wiz, as well as The Color Purple (on which he also served as executive producer). He’s even responsible for Will Smith’s career, producing The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Now We Have a Better Sense of What to Expect From the Michael Jackson Biopic

The film “Michael” is scheduled for a 2025 release

In 1985, Jones produced the star-studded “We Are the World,” a charity single that raised money for victims of famine in Ethiopia. He was a trailblazer whose career included plenty of “firsts”: He was the first Black composer to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song (for “The Eyes of Love” from Banning), the first Black person to be nominated for two Oscars in the same year, the first Black musical director of the Academy Awards and the first Black person to receive the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Throughout his long career, Jones won 28 Grammys, an Emmy and a Tony. (Though he was nominated seven times, Jones never won a competitive Oscar.) In 2001, he received a Kennedy Center Honor, and in 2011, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. He is survived by his six daughters (including actress Rashida Jones) and a son.