Quincy Delight Jones Jr. March 14, β November 3, was an American record producer, composer, arranger, conductor, trumpeter, and bandleader. Over the course of his seven-decade career, he received many accolades including 28 Grammy Awards , [ 1 ] 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 s as a jazz arranger and conductor before producing pop hit records for Lesley Gore in the early s 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 Michael Jackson : Off the Wall , Thriller , and Bad In , Jones produced and conducted the charity song " We Are the World ", which raised funds for victims of famine in Ethiopia.
He was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time. Quincy Jr. Jones said, "He had a baby with my great-grandmother [a slave], and my grandmother was born there [on a plantation in Kentucky].
We traced this all the way back to the Laniers , the same family as Tennessee Williams. Research showed that he had English, French, Italian, and Welsh ancestry through his father. His mother's side was of West and Central African descent, specifically from the Tikar people of Cameroon. Jones's family moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Jones was introduced to music by his mother who always sang religious songs, and next-door neighbor Lucy Jackson.
When Jones was five or six, Jackson played stride piano next door, and he would listen through the walls. Jackson recalled that after he heard her one-day, she could not get him off her piano. When Jones was young, his mother had a schizophrenic breakdown and was sent to a mental institution. Jones's father took a wartime job at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. After the war, the family moved to Seattle , where Jones attended Garfield High School and developed his skills as a trumpeter and arranger.
