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    Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra’s producer, turned 91

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    Kristin McGrath
    | USA TODAY

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

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

    Jones won a staggering 27 Grammy Awards during his career as an arranger and producer, and his legacy intersected 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-ridden 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, Jones broke into the Armory Recreation Center in Bremerton to steal food. Inside he found a piano. As he would later say in interviews, this was the moment that led him from a childhood of petty crime to a life of music.

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

    This whirlwind life as a touring musician brought Jones back to the United States and broke ground in 1961. He paid off his debts with Mercury Records, where he was eventually promoted to vice president at the otherwise white company.

    When dreams of film scoring lured Jones to Hollywood in 1965, executives were shocked to learn he was black after hiring him for the Gregory Peck film “Mirage.” He quickly earned two Oscar nominations (Best Original Song for “The Love of Ivy” and Best Original Score for the film “In Cold Blood”) in 1968 and became the Academy Awards’ first black musical director in 1971. executive produce the 1996 performance.

    Yet 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 to make music, scoring “The Bill Cosby Show,” “Sanford and Son” and the 1977 miniseries “Roots,” for which he won an Emmy.

    When Jones scored the movie “The Wiz,” he met Michael Jackson. He produced Jackson’s album ‘Off the Wall’ in 1979 and rose to become music king alongside the King of Pop in a partnership that also produced mega-sellers ‘Thriller’ and ‘Bad’. In 1985, the pair collaborated for the star-studded charity anthem “We Are the World,” which won three Grammys.

    Star power of ‘We are the world’ remains unparalleled: 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, Winfrey inducted Jones into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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

    Jones is survived by seven children: Jolie Jones Levine (with ex-wife, actress Jeri Caldwell), Martina Jones and Quincy Jones III (with second wife, model Ulla Andersson), Kidada Jones and “The Office” actress Rashida Jones (with 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 propelled Jones from jazz musician to music mogul never seemed to fade. He founded the production company responsible for ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’. He published an autobiography in 2001. And he collaborated with Lionel Richie for a second episode of “We Are The World” after the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

    In 2018, daughter Rashida and director Alan Hicks documented Jones’ generation- and genre-transcending career in the Netflix documentary ‘Quincy’. Rashida called the two-hour film “a starter kit” and said she shot 800 hours of footage and reviewed 2,000 hours of archives.

    Quincy Jones documentary from Netflix can barely contain his shockingly successful career

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

    Jones, who admitted he burst into tears every time he saw the film, said the message of his life resonates in the film: family, love and keeping perspective.

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

    This story has been updated with additional information.

    Contributors: Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY; Reuters

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