American songwriter, trumpeter and producer Quincy Jones has died at the age of 91

Among music producers, the name of Quincy Jones, who died on November 3, in Los Angeles (California), at the age of 91, is one of the few known to the general public. The reason, his collaboration with Michael Jackson (1958-2009), especially for the album Thrillerreleased in late November 1982. But when Quincy Jones shared all the honors with Michael Jackson during the Grammy Awards ceremony in February 1984, crowning the worldwide success of Thrillermusicians and all music professionals know that the then fifty-year-old already has a long career under his belt.

That, started in jazz in the early 1950s, a trumpeter, conductor, arranger and composer, notably of several dozen film scores and television show credits, as well as producer of multiple sessions recording stars of jazz, variety, the soul. or pop. In July 2014, he confessed to Francis Marmande, in The world : “I feel blessed, looking at the wonderful and fruitful journey my life has been on. I grew up in depression era Chicago, not much promise for me. »

Born in Chicago (Illinois) on March 14, 1933, Quincy Delight Jones Jr. first lived, together with his younger son, in the South Side neighborhood. His parents are employed in a residential building for the African American lower middle class. In 1941, his mother was hospitalized with a severe bout of schizophrenia – dying in 1999, she reappeared in Quincy Jones’s life between periods of calm and turmoil. The divorce was finalized and in 1943 the father moved with his two boys to Bremerton (Washington State), across from Seattle. They were soon joined by the father’s new companion, along with her son and two daughters. The couple would have three more children.

Revelation

In a village hall, Quincy Jones, then 11 years old, discovered a piano. He played a little as a child, listening and singing the gospel songs loved by his grandmother and mother. There, it is a revelation, and beyond that, that music, as he writes in his autobiography Quincy by Quincy Jones (2001, French edition in 2003, Robert Laffont), would ” (s)we intend (s)for life.”

He started playing the piano as a self-taught student, then the trumpet. A teacher notices her interest and gives her music theory lessons in exchange for babysitting hours. In 1947, the family moved to Seattle. He participates in the high school marching band. When pianist Count Basie’s (1904-1984) orchestra came to Seattle, Quincy Jones persuaded trumpeter Clark Terry (1920-2015) to correct their errors. The beginning of a long friendship with Terry and Basie. Quincy Jones was also part of a semi-professional orchestra led by vibraphonist “Bumps” Blackwell (1918-1985). Pianist and singer Ray Charles (1930-2004)and soon a close friend, plays with them for a while.

In 1949, this time it was to his orchestra vibraphonist Lionel Hampton (1908-2002)which passes to Seattle, which Quincy Jones will return. Still too young to tour, he was hired in the Hampton wind section two years later. Meanwhile, he obtained a scholarship to be admitted to Schillinger House in Boston (Massachusetts), which became the prestigious Berklee School of Music in 1954.

From 1951 to 1953, Quincy Jones played in Hampton’s big band and also became one of his arrangers. Its composition Kingfish would be his first recording for the group in October 1951. This time with Hampton allowed Quincy Jones to progress and make a name for himself. From 1954 to the late 1960s, he wrote “hundreds of arrangements”he says in his autobiography. For commercials, show music, little-known performers and stars. Among which, singers Dinah Washington (1924-1963) – For those in lovein 1955 – and Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990), trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993), Ray Charles, Count Basie – a peak, One more timepublished in early 1959, consisting of compositions by Quincy Jones, incl For Lena and Lenniewhich Claude Nougaro (1929-2004) adapted into French in 1977 under the title my summer record Frank Sinatra (1915-1998), met him in 1958, whom he met several times (including Might as well be Swingin 1964 with Count Basie and his orchestra).

In the summer of 1955, Quincy Jones started his own big band. A first album, That’s how I feel about jazzwas published in February 1957 by ABC-Paramount, followed by Go west, man!continuing Basie’s swing style. In April 1957, he moved to Paris, employed by the Barclay phonograph company. For almost two years, he supervised, together with his own band, most of the recording sessions. He went to the pianist, conductor, composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) several times to improve his writing for strings, harmony and analysis of classical works.

Back in the United States, in the early 1960s, Quincy Jones was hired by the American company Mercury Records. His first pop hit in 1963 was his productionIt’s my partyperformed by the young singer Lesley Gore (1946-2015) and arranged by Claus Ogerman. At the head of his big band, he recorded particularly well Quincy Jones plays trendy hits in 1963 and The Golden Boy in 1964, the year he was named vice president of Mercury Records.

The contract allows him to work for other companies. For Verve, he recorded, in 1962, one of his most famous records, in the bossa style that then spread to jazz, Big Band Bossa Novawith the tube Bossa Nova soul. He found his mate Ray Charles Genius + Soul = Jazz (Impulse!, 1961). In 1962, it was The girl from Greece Sings (Fontana), by Nana Mouskouri, which he produced with an orchestra conducted by Torrie Zito. He won his first Grammy Award in 1964 with his arrangementi can’t stop loving you of the disk This time by Basie, by Count Basie and His Orchestra. To date, Quincy Jones has won 27 Grammy Awards, behind conductor Georg Solti (1912-1997) with 31 wins and singer Beyoncé with 32 wins.

In 1961, Quincy Jones composed his first film score, the boy in the tree by the Swede Arne Sucksdorff, but it is from 1964 and this for pawnbroker, by Sidney Lumet, that he became a regular composer for film and television. The most interesting: those of thirty minutes delay, in 1965 by Sydney Pollack, In the heat of the nightin 1967 by Norman Jewison (Ray Charles sings the title theme In the heat of the night), gold leaf, in 1969 by Peter Collinson, dollars, in 1971 by Richard Brooks and, still in 1971, Anderson file, by Sidney Lumet. In 1967, the credits theme of the television series Ironside (Iron Man) becomes one of his classics.

In 1969, Quincy Jones left Mercury for A & M Records. He remained there until 1981, his albums then being published by his own company Qwest Records, founded in 1980. It is one of the structures of a group that includes a catalog of music publishing, a production house and investments for the entertainment industry (record, television , including series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, with Will Smith, cinema, press…). Qwest TV, an on-demand music video platform, launched in December 2017.

At A & M, Quincy Jones would record his most accomplished records in his desire to blend his jazz culture with soul, funk and pop. Space walking in 1969, Matari Gorge, in 1970, smackwaterjack, in 1971 and Body heat in 1974. That same year, 1974, he suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm. He must stop playing the trumpet, touring with his orchestra, and the intense pace of writing arrangements and compositions that has been his for the past twenty years.

In 1978, he supervised the film’s music wizard, by Sidney Lumet, film adaptation of the musical itself inspired by The Wizard of Oz. Among the performers in the film, Michael Jackson, who is preparing a fifth solo album and asks Quincy Jones to co-produce it. From the wall was released in August 1979. Funk, disco, pop and soul intertwine. Critical and commercial success, with nearly 15 million copies sold in the months following publication.

“ Erecord of the year »

The duo hits even harder with Thriller (November 1982), which spawned seven hit singles (the girl is mine duet with Paul McCartney, Billie Jean, Beat It, Thriller…) on the album’s nine tracks. Stratospheric sales, nearly 40 million albums within months of its release. A Grammy for “producer of the year” rewards Quincy Jones. The third and final stage of the Jackson-Jones collaboration, River, in August 1987 and his nine singles (I just can’t stop loving you, bad, the way you make me feel, Smooth Criminal…) on the eleven tracks on the disc.

In early 1985, while working on his music the color purple, by Steven Spielberg, Quincy Jones is asked by the singer Harry Belafonte and Ken Kragen, the manager of Lionel Richie and Kenny Rogers, to participate in an operation of the US association for Africa, to finance the fight against hunger in Africa, especially in Ethiopia. Quincy Jones will lead the recording sessions for the song we are the world written by Michel Jackson and Lionel Richie, featuring Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Ray Charles, Al Jarreau, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Billy Joel. At the 1986 Grammy Awards, We Are The World earned Quincy Jones the “Record of the Year” award.

In 1989, while his previous album dates back to 1981, Quincy Jones once again experienced a triumph with his album. back to the block which he likes to present as a summary of his approaches, from jazz to hip-hop. His biggest personal triumph at the Grammy Awards in 1990, with six wins (out of seven nominations), including “album of the year”, “best rap performance”, “best jazz fusion performance” for the version of birdland, by Joe Zawinul and “producer of the year”.

Since the 1990s, Quincy Jones has focused primarily on his business. He also puts his reputation and address book at the service of charitable foundations (research on AIDS, cancer, help for victims of sexual assault, etc.) and structures aimed at the education of young people, through his Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation.

On July 8, 1991, he conducted the Montreux Jazz Festival for his first appearance at the famous Swiss festival, the imposing orchestra that played the music written by Gil Evans for Miles Davis decades ago. This retrospective concert will be one of the last for the trumpeter, who died at the end of September of the same year. Since then, Montreux has regularly invited Quincy Jones. In 2008 he celebrated his 75th birthday there, and in 2013 his 80th.