Quincy Jones Dies Aged 91

Facts

• Quincy Jones, a titan of the music industry whose career spanned over 75 years, has died aged 91.^[1][2]
• His death was confirmed by his publicist Arnold Robinson who said the musician and producer "passed away peacefully" in his Bel Air home on Sunday, surrounded by his family.^[3][4]
• "Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones' passing," the family said in a statement. "[A]lthough 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."^[5][6]
• Born in Chicago in 1933, Jones started learning piano aged seven. At 14, after moving to Washington state and having started to play drums and a host of brass instruments, he joined a band with 16-year-old Ray Charles that played Seattle's bar scene, on one occasion backing Billie Holiday.^[5]
• In the 1950s, after studying music in Boston and moving to New York, he'd go on to tour Europe with jazz bandleader Lionel Hampton as well as the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, before beginning to work with Frank Sinatra in 1958.^[5]
• While Jones's subsequent achievements were expansive, his best known credits include producing Michael Jackson's Thriller album and overseeing recording of the 1985 charity single We Are The World. He earned 28 Grammy award wins from 80 nominations — the third most of all time.^[1][5]

Sources: ^[1]Sky News, ^[2]CNN, ^[3]BBC News, ^[4]The Hollywood Reporter, ^[5]The Guardian and ^[6]Associated Press.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Rolling Stone. This is a huge loss for the music community. Jones's work as a composer, arranger, producer, conductor, and scorer spanned decades and marked the apex of jazz, funk, and soul music in the twentieth century. He will be remembered as a pioneer and his spirit will live on through the thousands of records he worked on, which continue to be widely loved and listened to in the US and across the rest of the world.
• Narrative B, as provided by Arts Professional and Statista Daily Data. The loss of Jones is undoubtedly a tragedy for the music industry, and although his widely popular productions remain loved, his death comes as the jazz scene he so electrified with his virtuosic prowess continues to dwindle. International surveys suggest jazz and blues persist as the least listened to genres worldwide, while the effects of the COVID pandemic and broader economic landscape continue to weaken fragile musical ecosystem, especially at the grassroots. These genres need a great like Jones now more than ever to reinvigorate and repopularize them with a new generation.