(Image: Los Angeles Public Library, under Creative Commons licence)
Composer and record producer Quincy Jones, a 28-time Grammy Award winner, died yesterday at 91. Inspired by Ray Charles after seeing him perform at a local Elks Club, he worked as a young man on Stage Show, hosted by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. He spent much of the 1950s in Europe touring with multiple jazz orchestras.
In 1964, he composed his first film score, for The Pawnbroker. He would go on to score numerous other films, including In Cold Blood (1967), In the Heat of the Night (1967), The Italian Job (1969), and The Color Purple (1985), which marked his debut as a film producer.
Jones’s seven children include the actress Rashida Jones and music producer Quincy Jones III. His 28 Grammy wins, out of 80 nominations, make him the third-most decorated artist in the awards’ history.
He garnered a Primetime Emmy for the 1977 miniseries Roots and a Tony Award for the 2015 revival of the stage musical adaptation of The Color Purple. Nominated seven times for an Oscar, he never won, but received the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1995.
