Quincy Jones, Legendary Music Producer Who Worked with Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson, Dies at 91

Jones died on Sunday, Nov.3 at his home in Los Angeles, surrounded by his family

Quincy Jones at the 1982 Grammy Awards. Photo: CBS via Getty

Legendary musician Quincy Jones has died. He was 91.

Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson, told the Associated Press that he died on Sunday, Nov.3 at his home in Los Angeles, surrounded by his family.

“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing,” the family said in a statement provided to PEOPLE. “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.”

“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.”

The musician is survived by seven children: Rashida Jones, Kidada Jones, Kenya Kinski-Jones, Quincy Jones III, Jolie Jones Levine, Martina Jones, and Rachel Jones. He is also survived by grandchildren Isaiah Jones Koenig, Quincy Renzo Delight Jones IV and Nea Jones. He was godfather to actor-musician Quincy Brown, who was named after the music great.

Rashida and Quincy Jones. Rob Latour/Variety/REX/Shutterstock

He escaped death in 1974 when he was just 41 years old. The music extraordinaire had a brain aneurysm and underwent brain surgery but was told soon after that he had a second aneurysm ready to explode. He underwent surgery again. At the time, he was told he had a one-in-a-hundred chance of surviving.

“It was scary,” he told GQ in 2018. “Like somebody blew my brains out. The main artery to your brain explodes, you know.”

Quincy Jones. Brad Barket/Getty

Born on March 14, 1933, the Chicago native first rose to prominence as a trumpet player in bands for jazz music greats including Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie.

At 14, Jones fled from the quarters of his abusive stepmom — whom he said didn’t call him by name until he was 57 — to join the National Guard, he revealed to GQ. He lied and said he was 18 to join, but was met with extreme racism.

During this time, he and a group of friends were heading to a rodeo in Yakima when a trailway bus hit them. He said everybody in the car died except him — the scene was gruesome and left him traumatized. He attempted to take driving lessons a few years later but he “just couldn’t do it” and never drove again.

His credits were vast and his accomplishments enormous. As a producer and arranger, Jones was partially behind the success of several music giants including Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin and more.

He produced “It’s My Party” for Lesley Gore, who was only 16 at the time. The single went to No. 1 and made Gore one of the youngest singers to reach that zenith. Jones also produced three 1963 Top 5 follow-ups for Gore: “Judy’s Turn to Cry,” “She’s a Fool” and “You Don’t Own Me.”

In the ’70s, he worked his production magic on albums by The Brothers Johnson, a funk duo from Los Angeles. He produced their first four albums, all of which went platinum, and three singles that reached the Top 10 of Billboard‘s Hot 100 and topped the R&B chart: “I’ll Be Good to You,” “Strawberry Letter 23” and “Stomp!”.

Jones would enjoy his greatest success as a producer in collaboration with Michael Jackson. He produced three of his seminal solo albums — 1979’s Off the Wall, 1982’s Thriller and 1987’s Bad. Thriller would become the biggest-selling album of all time and turned Michael Jackson into a global superstar.

“Billie Jean,” the second single from Thriller, would become one of the most iconic hits of the ’80s and “Beat It” was one of the most influential, with its merger of R&B and rock. Not only did Jones produce the hit, he also tapped late music virtuoso Eddie Van Halen to perform the track’s now-legendary guitar solo. He also revived “Human Nature,” a throwaway track co-written and demoed by Toto’s Steve Porcaro for inclusion on the album.

Quincy Jones was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient in 2001, alongside (clockwise from top left, Van Cliburn, Jack Nicholson, Luciano Pavarotti and Julie Andrews. POOL/Getty Images

In a 2018 interview with Vulture, Jones assessed his decades of innovation: “Everything was something to be proud of — absolutely. It’s been an amazing contrast of genres. Since I was very young, I’ve played all kinds of music: bar mitzvah music, Sousa marches, strip-club music, jazz, pop. Everything. I didn’t have to learn a thing to do Michael Jackson.”

Talking to GQ, he elaborated on what made Jackson special. “He had a perspective on details that was unmatched. His idols are Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, James Brown, all of that. And he paid attention, and that’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s the only way you can be great, you know, is pay attention to the best guys who ever did it.”

Jones also co-produced and conducted an all-star choir on “We Are the World,” written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie for famine relief in Africa. The song would go on to be the top-selling single of 1985 and win four Grammys, and Jones’s command to the assembled performers — “Check your egos at the door” — became legendary.

“I think I was chosen to produce ‘We Are the World’ because I had produced an album for Donna Summer a couple of years earlier,” Jones said in an interview with Yahoo Music, per udiscovermusic. “On that album was a track called ‘State of Independence’ that needed a choir. I wanted the best choir I could get, so about a third of the artists on ‘We Are the World’ were on that track. So I was on familiar ground.”

He added, “I know and believe in the power of music to bring people together for the betterment of mankind, and there may be no better example of this than the collective that was ‘We Are the World.’ That’s why it resonated around the world the way it did, and still does.”

He also composed the theme music for the sitcoms Sanford and Son and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which would begin Will Smith’s ascent from rapper to major Hollywood star.

As an artist, he composed the score for the 1985 film The Color Purple, which was nominated for an Oscar. Jones’ 1974 album Body Heat peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart. He also recorded a string of albums on which he used an assortment of star vocalists, including James Ingram, Ray Charles and Chaka Khan.

He went platinum with 1978’s Sounds…and Stuff Like That!!, 1981’s The Dude and 1989’s Back on the Block, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year. They all spawned Top 40 singles.

In 1980, he established his own label, Qwest Records, whose signees included George Benson (Jones produced his quintessential 1980 disco single “Give Me the Night”), Patti Austin (he produced her No. 1 1981 duet with James Ingram, “Baby Come to Me”), Frank Sinatra, Tevin Campbell and New Order.

From left: Kidada Jones, Quincy Jones and Rashida Jones. Donato Sardella/WireImage

Jones was married three times, to Jeri Caldwell from 1957 to 1966, to Ulla Anderson, a Swedish actress, from 1967 to 1974, and, from 1974 to 1990, to The Mod Squad actress Peggy Lipton, with whom he shared daughters Rashida and Kidada. From 1991 to 1995, he was in a relationship with actress Nastassja Kinski, with whom he shared daughter Kenya, a model.

Although his output slowed in later years, Jones, a lifelong activist and supporter of Martin Luther King Jr., continued to contribute to charitable causes and worked on the soundtrack to the 2024 film Lola.

As far as retirement, in 2018, he told GQ that he was only getting warmed up. “I feel like a child, man,” he said. “I’m just starting.”