Everything the multi-talented Quincy Jones dabbled in—be it jazz, pop, or movie soundtracks—became a hit. During his career, he won 28 Grammys and was nominated 80 times.

He was the musical genius behind Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the charity single “We Are the World” and the cult TV series “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

He shaped the music industry in a career spanning 70 years; He produced albums for Ray Charles, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Donna Summer and Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Aznavour and U2; just a few of them.

He was the first African American to become vice president of a major record label and rubbed shoulders with great musicians as well as the likes of Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II.

The music legend passed away at his home in Los Angeles on Sunday night, surrounded by his family, at the age of 91. “Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of the passing of our father and brother, Quincy Jones,” the family said in a statement. he said. “And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the wonderful life he lived and know there will never be anyone like him.”

growing up in the ghetto

Despite all his success, Quincy Jones’ formative years were not very promising. His is a typical American Dream story: A humble kid reaches the top of the music industry through hard work.

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born on March 14, 1933 in Chicago. Shaken by the economic depression, the US economy was in recession. And mafia gangster boss Al Capone was in control of the city.

Jones grew up in the infamous ghetto of Chicago’s South Side. He carried a knife in his pocket just in case and wanted to do only one thing: become a gangster.

“You want to be what you see, and that’s what I saw,” he describes of that period of his life in the 2018 Netflix documentary “Quincy.” And he had never seen a white person until he was 11 years old.

A life of crime seemed preordained for Jones until he broke into the home of a U.S. Army veteran. A piano standing in the corner caught his attention. He pressed the buttons and this was the beginning of a great love. He felt an “irrepressible desire” to do something with her. This is how Jones became a musician.

Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘bad dude’

Her father divorced her mother after she suffered a schizophrenic break, and later moved the family to Seattle when she was 10 years old. There Jones met Ray Charles, who was two years his senior, and the two became best friends.

At the age of 14, Jones was performing in various bands with his friend Charles, playing dance music in white tennis clubs in the afternoons and bebop in the city’s jazz bars at night. At age 19, he was a trumpeter in the orchestra of Lionel Hampton, one of the hottest artists of the 1950s.

Jazz icon Dizzy Gillespie called him a “bad guy” as a musician who knew the ins and outs of the profession. From the very beginning he tried his hand at composing and arranging. He performed onstage with Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday and eagerly learned from his bandmates.

In 1956 Gillespie hired him as an orchestra leader and took him on tour. That same year, Jones worked on his own debut album, “This Is How I Feel About Jazz”, in New York.

Despite his early successes, Jones turned to Europe because jazz in his home country was still considered inferior Black music. He was lucky to find a place to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen (the best in their field), who taught him the art of composition and arranging. This knowledge would later enable him to conquer musical worlds that were once closed to Black musicians.

Success of all kinds

Later in 1964, Jones became vice president of Mercury, one of the leading record companies at the time. He was the first African American to hold such an executive position at a white-owned record company.

That same year he released his first album for Frank Sinatra. In 1969, the Apollo 11 crew listened to Jones’ version of “Fly Me To The Moon” during their moon landing, like everyone else around the world who sits entranced in front of the television. Jones also wrote soundtracks, including the successful theme songs for the TV series. roots and for the movie Color Purple.

His stylistically confident feel for a wide range of musical styles, from bossa nova to soul to funk, has made him a highly sought-after producer and conductor.

Best selling album of all time

In 1974, Jones suffered a near-fatal brain aneurysm — a bursting of blood vessels leading to the brain. He had to give up playing the trumpet and as a result threw himself into his work as a producer and started his own record label, Qwest Records. Jones finally rose to the top of the music world when he took former child star Michael Jackson under his wing.

Jackson’s first solo album “Off the Wall” sold Eight million copies made him an international superstar and Jones became Hollywood’s most sought-after record producer. Their second collaborative album, “Thriller” (1982), spawned an unprecedented six Top Ten singles, including “Billie Jean,” “Beat It” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'”. Estimated to have sold more than 70 million copies worldwide, it remains the best-selling album of all time.

Three years later, under Jones’ direction, the song “We Are The World” was written for the Band Aid charity project. Jones brought together Michael Jackson, Lionel Ritchie, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Kenny Rogers and Tina Turner to sing on the album, with proceeds going to victims of the great famine in Ethiopia in 1984-85.

Jones was always eager to experiment and was always breaking new musical ground. He had a sensitive ear for musical styles from all corners of the world: perhaps that is why his music spanned the decades effortlessly, and the hits of the 1960s are still successful.

But Jones also received his share of brickbats. He was accused of exploiting Black culture and distorting rhythms to create commercial music that was easy for white people to consume. But it was mostly white people who accused him of betraying his Black brothers.

“I reach the hearts and minds of millions of people through the power of music,” Jones once said. His death is unlikely to change that, as the musical genius left behind a vast legacy of musical gems.

This article was originally written in German.