Michael Jackson’s legendary producer, trumpeter and groove arranger-composer Quincy Jones passed away on Sunday, November 3, at the age of 91. A true music legend with no fewer than 70 Grammy Award nominations (including 27 titles), Quincy Jones leaves a rich heritage of sound and brass at the crossroads of musical genres.
“Just you and nothing else… You and nothing else”.
It was on June 27, 2019 that Quincy Jones‘ most personal and famous hit, Ai No Corrida (1981), resounded at the Accor Arena.
An all-brass track performed by a symphony orchestra in the presence of the artist himself, who was determined to celebrate 70 years of a career marked by encounters, discoveries and hits that have left an indelible mark on several generations.
The array of prestigious guests present that evening was a reflection of his life, whose address book was an authentic Who’s Who of the American music industry over seven decades: Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson…
A life lived at a hundred miles an hour, which came to an end on November 3, 2024 in Los Angeles. He was 91 years old.
Gangster seed
Yet nothing predestined Quincy Delight Jones to become “Mr. Q”, a respected authority figure capable of channeling the egos of pop, rock and jazz superstars such as Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan and Miles Davis.
Born in 1933 in Chicago, the capital of American crime in the final days of Prohibition, he had every reason to end up badly. His violent father was directly linked to the Jones Boys gang, a rival gang to the godfather of godfathers at the time, a certain Al Capone, who had been convicted of tax fraud two years earlier.
Following a serious schizophrenic attack, his mother was eventually committed to a psychiatric hospital. When he was eleven, his father filed for divorce and decided to escape the mob, fleeing with him to Bremerton, Washington, before migrating to Seattle.
He immediately made the unexpected encounter that would change his life forever and save him from the temptation of a career in the Mafia: that with a piano. When he heard the first notes in a village hall, he washooked: “When I touched it, every cell in my body told me this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life, ” Quincy Jones told The Hollywood Reporter.
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