Quincy Jones, 1933-2024: the Godfather of 20th-century music in photos

The legendary music producer Quincy Jones died on November 3 at the age of 91. He was surrounded by his family in Bel-Air, Los Angeles, his publicist Arnold Robinson stated.

"Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing," the family's statement read.

In the photo: Jones with his daughter, the actress Rashida Jones

"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," they concluded.

Quincy Jones was an essential figure in 20th-century pop, blues, and jazz music. He produced great artists such as Donna Summer, Aretha Franklin, and Frank Sinatra.

In this and the previous photo, for example, we see Jones with music stars Dionne Warwick, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and Stevie Wonder at the 1986 Grammy Awards. They were nominated for four awards for the song 'We Are The World' and won three of them.

Jones' amazing talent earned him a total of 80 Grammy nominations in his lifetime, of which he won 28 awards.

Quincy Jones was a renowned film composer and music producer. He won a Primetime Emmy Award with his 'Outstanding Music Composition for a Series' for the historical drama 'Roots' in 1977.

Part of his legacy is the success of African-American pop talents such as Michael Jackson. Jones was particularly good at producing and promoting black pop music from the late 1970s onward.

Jones will forever be remembered as the producer of two of the best albums in history: Michael Jackson's 'Off the Wall' (1979) and 'Thriller' (1982), as well as his 'Bad' (1987). They turned Jackson into the King of Pop.

In 1985, Quincy Jones produced and conducted the charity hymn 'We Are The World'. The proceeds of the single went to the victims of the famine in Ethiopia.

Quincy Jones also ventured into film and television, where his big global success was 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' (1990).

The comedy would launch Will Smith to fame.

He was married three times, with Jeri Caldwell, Ulla Andersson, and Peggy Lipton, but there were many more women in his life. In the photo, Nastassja Kinski whom he dated from 1991 to 1995. Jones also told New York Magazine that he dated Ivanka Trump after her divorce from Donald Trump.

Quincy Jones had multiple severe health issues, despite of which he managed to live to the respectable age of 91. One of them was type 2 diabetes, the other a brain aneurysm that nearly cost him his life when he was 41, in 1974.

Jones shared details of his health problems on his Facebook page, telling his friends and followers that he had been in a diabetic coma in 2018. In GQ magazine, he recounted that playing the trumpet nearly caused another deadly brain aneurysm in the late 70s. He then had to put the instrument down.

Jones had such influence in the entertainment industry that his colleagues nicknamed him 'The Godfather'. As such he will be remembered, every time we hear his music or watch an audiovisual masterpiece he made possible.

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