Mourning for legend

Music producer Quincy Jones (91) has died

Mourning the death of an icon: music producer Quincy Jones is dead.

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Quincy Jones is dead! The producer, who worked with superstars such as Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, died at the age of 91.

His press spokesman Arnold Robinson announced that Jones died on Sunday evening at his home in the Bel Air district of Los Angeles surrounded by his family.

"It is with full but broken hearts tonight that we share the news of the passing of our father and brother Quincy Jones," the family said in a statement. "While this is an incredible loss to our family, we celebrate the great life he lived and know that there will never be another like him."

Produced Jackson's "Thriller"
Whether Michael Jackson, George Benson, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee or Ella Fitzgerald: they all worked with Quincy Jones.

Born in Chicago in 1933, Jones has led a band, performed as a solo artist and sideman, written, produced and arranged songs, managed a record label, composed film music, written books, brought feature films to the screen and helped develop TV series.

But Jones is best known for one of the most famous albums in pop history: Michael Jackson's "Thriller" from 1982, which Jones produced.

Quincy Jones produced Michael Jackson's album "Thriller" and thus wrote pop history.

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Jones discovered his love of music by chance as a child when he sat at a piano for the first time. Later, he also played the trumpet and sang in a gospel group and received a scholarship to Barklee College of Music in Boston.

Winner of 28 Grammys
He soon moved to New York, where he arranged songs for Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey and Dinah Washington and led Dizzy Gillespie's band as a trumpet player. He further perfected his playing with lessons from Nadia Boulanger in Paris. In 1961, Jones was appointed Vice President at Mercury Records, making him the first African-American to become musical director of a major US record label. According to his own statements, he still had to deal with racism time and again.

Jones has been nominated for a Grammy 80 times and has won the trophy 28 times - only George Solti (31) and, more recently, Beyoncé (32) have won more.

At the peak of the pop music business
With the Jackson albums "Off The Wall", "Thriller" and "Bad" (1987), Jones had reached the pinnacle of the pop music business. He also celebrated success in other industries: soundtrack to Steven Spielberg's "The Color Purple", producer of the TV sitcom "The Prince of Bel Air", publisher of the music magazines "Vibe" and "Spin".

Among his charitable work, the charity single "We Are the World" with Jackson and Lionel Richie was particularly memorable. At times, Jones acted as a kind of unofficial cultural ambassador for the USA.

Quincy Jones was 91 years old. In his career, he reached the pinnacle of the pop business.

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In the end, there seemed to be almost nothing that Jones had not done or experienced in US entertainment - and he obviously liked to hear himself talk about it. He unpacked anecdotes about the Beatles, Prince, David Bowie and rapper Tupac Shakur, as well as Malcolm X, Elon Musk, Truman Capote, Buzz Aldrin and his numerous affairs.

With all these encounters and achievements, it is "hard to believe that they are all the experiences of one man", wrote "GQ" magazine after an interview. Jones later said that his daughters had told him to stop blabbing so much in interviews. Jones has been married three times and has seven children. "I've never been lonely in my life and I've never been bored."