March 14, 1933 – November 3, 2024
If you had to choose one person, and one person only, to serve as a lens to view the entirety of 20th Century American music, you wouldn’t even need a full name. A single letter would more than suffice: Q
Quincy Jones was perhaps best known as the groundbreaking and uber-successful record producer that shaped pop music for decades. But, he was also a talented musician in his own right, playing trumpet and, eventually, keyboards with some of the biggest names on the planet. I’ll get the name dropping out of the way early so we can focus on his accomplishments, but throughout his extraordinary 70 year career, Jones worked with the likes of Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Diana Ross, Billy Preston, Aretha Franklin, Lesley Gore, Little Richard, Chaka Kahn, George Benson, Tevin Campbell, Usher, Snoop Dogg and, of course, Michael Jackson.
And that’s not even counting the stars he worked with on the monumental 1985 charity recording of “We Are the World”…which he produced and conducted.
Celebrity Graveland 