US music giant, Quincy Jones dies aged 91

Celebrated US musician and producer, Quincy Jones who worked with Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra and many others, dies aged 91.

Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson, said he “passed away peacefully” on Sunday night at his home in Bel Air.

Jones was best known as the producer of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album.

Over his career that spanned more than 75 years he won 28 Grammy awards and was named as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time magazine.

He produced and conducted the recording of the 1985 charity record, We Are The World.

He also composed the soundtrack to more than 30 films including Heat of the Night, The Color Purple and The Italian Job.

He was also a successful composer of dozens of film scores, and had numerous chart hits under his own name. Jones was a bandleader in big band jazz, an arranger for jazz stars including Count Basie, and a multi-instrumentalist, most proficiently on trumpet and piano.

His TV and film production company, founded in 1990, had major success with the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and other shows, and he continued to innovate well into his 80s, launching Qwest TV in 2017, an on-demand music TV service.

Jones is third only to Beyoncé and Jay-Z for having the most Grammy award nominations of all time – 80 to their 88 each – and is the awards’ third most-garlanded winner, with 28.

Jones was born in Chicago in 1933. His half-white father had been born to a Welsh slave owner and one of his female slaves, while his mother’s family were also descended from slave owners. His introduction to music came through the walls of his childhood home from a piano played by a neighbour, which he started learning age aged seven, and via his mother’s singing.

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