At 91 years old, Quincy Jones, a legendary music producer known for his work with Michael Jackson, George Benson, and The Brothers Johnson, passed away peacefully on November 3, 2024. He leaves behind an impressive legacy of musical contributions that continue to shape contemporary R&B, funk, rock, and jazz.

The Beginnings

Born in 1933 in Chicago, Illinois, Quincy Jones began his music career privately studying the trumpet. At 12 years old, Jones became Clark Terry’s first student, gaining foundational jazz experience that would propel his career forward.

Terry’s lessons not only cultivated Jones’s trumpet playing but his overall musical skillset as well. He eventually accepted a scholarship to Boston’s Berklee School of Music in 1951, but promptly dropped out after receiving a tour offer from bandleader Lionel Hampton. Jones relocated to New York City and honed his trumpet skills alongside Hampton, Count Basie, and Tommy Dorsey.

In 1957, Jones began studying music theory at the Paris Conservatory of Music. He continued his career as leader of a jazz orchestra, The Quincy Jones Big Band, in France. The orchestra disbanded soon after due to a lack of funds made during their tour through Europe and North America.

After returning to the United States, Jones became a director for Mercury Records, a Chicago-based record label, in 1961. He was named vice president three years later, becoming one of the first African Americans to hold an executive position at a major American record label.

Throughout the 1960s, Jones arranged albums for several eminent figures in the music world, including Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. He also composed scores to over 35 films, like In Cold Blood (1967), In the Heat of the Night (1967), and The Italian Job (1969).

As the decade progressed, his popularity, knowledge, and strategy in the field followed suit. He gradually shifted his focus from jazz to pop due to the evolving landscape of the contemporary music industry. With increasing success as a producer and a desire for more creative freedom, Jones left Mercury Records and founded his own record label, Qwest, in 1980.

The Production Discography

From Paul Simon to Michael Jackson, the list of celebrated musicians who form Quincy Jones’s production discography extends far beyond that of other 20th-century producers. Racking up 18 pages of awards in his 2001 autobiography, “Q,” Jones made a profound impact on each music genre he contributed to.

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson considered the most successful artist with whom Jones collaborated, won a total of 13 Grammy awards under Quincy Jones’s production. The two met in the early 1970s during Jackson’s bubblegum pop era with family band, The Jackson 5.

In 2017, Jones explained the terms of their meeting in a Facebook post celebrating the late singer’s 59th birthday.

“I first met Michael when he was 12 at Sammy Davis’ house in LA as we watched the Ed Sullivan show with the Jackson 5. We didn’t meet again until years later when we worked on The Wiz, but I knew then that he had the potential to go way beyond what he’d previously done.”

– Quincy Jones, Facebook

The two did not begin working together professionally until 1978. They reunited on set of The Wiz, a contemporary adaptation of The Wizard of Oz starring Jackson, Diana Ross, and Nipsey Russell, to name a few of the film’s all-star cast. Aftering producing the movie’s soundtrack, Jones offered to produce the then 19-year-old Michael Jackson’s fifth studio album, Off the Wall.

Jones and Jackson ultimately worked together on three multi-award-winning albums: Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987). Their music garnered numerous accolades, including nine No. 1 songs, eight Grammys for Thriller alone, and millions of albums sold. Their teamwork resulted in an incredible legacy for both Jones and Jackson.

George Benson

Unlike Michael Jackson, George Benson, ten-time Grammy winner in jazz, was already a fully formed artist before collaborating with Jones. The two met while Jones was in search of artists for his new label, Qwest Records.

After releasing Benson’s 1980 album Give Me The Night—the first album to be released by Qwest—Jones and Benson won a total of three Grammys for it before it became certified platinum.

In a New Musical Express interview, Benson expressed how, despite his lifetime of music expertise, he complied with Jones’s instincts.

“He sent me the mixes after he’d done them so I could make comments – up to a certain degree. Some people call it nitpicking, but the slightest thing … a touch too sweet, or not quite enough sugar. … I lost ‘Love Ballad’ because of that. It’s just too slow. … Melody, performance, won a Grammy, the whole thing … but we lost it! You couldn’t dance to it!“

– George Benson, New Musical Express

The Brothers Johnson

Quincy Jones discovered disco-funk duo The Brothers Johnson in 1975 after hearing their guitar and bass stylings on a demo track by Taka Boom, Chaka Khan’s sister. The Brothers Johnson (George and Louis Johnson) immediately stole the attention of Jones with their groovy look and sound.

Jones went on to produce their debut album Look Out For #1 in 1976, as well as Right On Time (1977), Blam! (1978), and Light Up the Night (1980). The Brothers Johnson’s wildly popular single “Stomp!” from their final album with Jones, Light Up the Night, became one of their most recognizable and chart-topping songs.

The Brothers Johnson, with Jones’s guidance, also released their famous cover of Shuggie Otis’s “Strawberry Letter 23” in 1977. The duo ended their collaboration with Jones in 1980.

The Legacy

In the span of his lengthy music career, Quincy Jones received 80 Grammy nominations, winning 28. His seven decades of work partnered him with the century’s most acclaimed musicians, including Aretha Franklin and Amy Winehouse. Spanning genres from pop to bossa nova, hip-hop to disco, Jones’s extensive résumé distinguishes his music production as unparalleled.

Quincy Jones’s remarkable contributions to the world of production have cemented him in history. Solidified as a true titan of music and a star in nearly every musical genre, Jones remains the most respected—and missed—producer of all time.