Quincy Delight Jones Jr. who died recently was an American record producer, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. Over the course of his seven-decade career, he received many accolades including 28 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Tony Award as well as nominations for seven Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards.
Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor before producing pop hit records for Lesley Gore in the early 1960s (including “It’s My Party”) and serving as an arranger and conductor for several collaborations between Frank Sinatra and the jazz artist Count Basie. Jones produced three of the most successful albums by pop star Michael Jackson: Off The Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987). In 1985, Jones produced and conducted the charity song “We Are the World”, which raised funds for victims of famine in Ethiopia.
In the 1960s, Jones worked as an arranger for Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Nana Mouskouri, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, and Dinah Washington. His solo recordings included Walking in Space, Gula Matari, Smackwater Jack, You’ve Got it Bad Girl, Body Heat, Mellow Madness, and I Heard That!! Jones’s 1962 tune “Soul Bossa Nova”, which originated on the Big Band Bossa Nova album, was later used as the theme for the 1997 spy comedy Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.
Jones composed numerous films scores including for The Pawnbroker (1965), In the Heat of the Night (1967), The Italian Job (1969), The Wiz (1978), and The Colour Purple (1985). He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for the miniseries Roots (1977). He received a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical as a producer for the revival of The Colour Purple (2016).
Throughout career he was the recipient of numerous honorary awards including the Grammy Legend Award in 1992, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1995, the Kennedy Centre Honours in 2001, the National Medal of the Arts in 2011, the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2014, and the Academy Honorary in 2024. In 2004, Jones helped launch the We Are the Future (WAF) project, which gives children in poor and conflict-ridden areas a chance to live their childhoods and develop a sense of hope. He was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time.
