Music maestro Quincy Jones leaves behind body of work like no other after passing aged 91

Louis Armstrong to Donna Summer, Frank Sinatra to Snoop Dogg, Miles Davis to Michael Jackson – all benefited from the maestro’s magic touch. The producer, songwriter and ­musician, who has died aged 91, leaves a body of work like no other.

Quincy Jones ’ CV reads like a list of the 20th century’s most influential musicians, with very few missing.

Louis Armstrong to Donna Summer, Frank Sinatra to Snoop Dogg, Miles Davis to Michael Jackson – all benefited from the maestro’s magic touch. The producer, songwriter and ­musician, who has died aged 91, leaves a body of work like no other.

In particular, collaborations with Jackson on Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad changed the landscape of music and turned Jacko into the King of Pop. Quincy became one of the first Black executives to achieve major success in Hollywood, amassing a musical legacy that has influenced generations.

His genius was not even confined to this planet, with Buzz Aldrin playing Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon – arranged by Quincy – on Apollo 11. Later on, he remembered his own tough childhood and used his fame to lift others – working to fight HIV/Aids and helping underserved youth through his Listen Up! Foundation.

Quincy remained outspoken and had a way with words which almost matched his musical genius. Aware of his legacy, he once said: “I’m probably the only one in the world that’s worked with Billie Holiday, Louie Armstrong, Ella, Duke, Miles, Dizzy, Ray Charles, Aretha, Michael Jackson. Sinatra. Paul Simon. Tony Bennett. I’m the only one.”

He missed a few – names as famous and varied as Barbra Streisand, Whoopi Goldberg and Will Smith. But with so many collaborations over a 70-year career, it must be hard keeping track of them all.

He was also an advocate of music’s power to heal pain, which goes some way to explaining how it first got hold of him. Quincy was born in Chicago on March 14, 1933, to Quincy Sr, a carpenter who worked for local gangsters, and Sarah Wells, a musically talented Boston University graduate.

At one point in the late 1930s, he and his brother, Lloyd, were separated from their mum, who had developed a schizophrenic disorder. They were taken by their father to Louisville, Kentucky, where they were put in the care of their grandma, a former enslaved worker.

At the age of seven, his mum’s illness had left him bereft, and he turned to the streets for company. Quincy said: “My brother and I watched her being taken away in a straitjacket. That’s something you never forget. So I said to myself, ‘I don’t have a mother. I don’t need one. I’m going to let music be my mother.”

Later, after discovering a piano in a nearby recreation centre, he knew it was his path. He soon met Ray Charles, a blind young musician with whom he forged a lifelong friendship. He said of the singer: “When I was 13, I started working in a nightclub with Ray.

“That’s the greatest school in the world, the school of the streets. Ray taught me how to read in Braille. He was only two years older than me, but it was like he was 100 years older.”

Though Quincy won a scholarship to Berklee College of Music, he left to tour with Lionel Hampton’s band, ­beginning his life as a musician.

In his early career, he performed with jazz legends like Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. By the mid-1960s, he became a vice president at Mercury Records, one of the first Black executives at a major label. He arranged records for Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, scored television series like Roots, and composed the soundtrack for In the Heat of the Night.

His talent for bringing people together was demonstrated in 1985 when he organised America’s We Are the World project, to raise money for famine relief in Africa. Lionel Richie, who co-wrote the song, called him “The master orchestrator.” His Hollywood debut was equally groundbreaking, becoming the first Black musical director for the Academy Awards in 1971.

In 1985, he produced The Colour Purple, which received 11 Oscar nominations and introduced audiences to Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg. And one of his TV productions, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, gave a young Will Smith his first major role.

Yet his most famous partnership was with the King of Pop, which began after he scored The Wiz, in which Jackson starred. When Quincy offered to produce the singer’s album, Epic Records executives objected, believing him “too jazzy”.

But Jackson insisted. Together, they created hits like Billie Jean and Beat It, fusing disco, funk, rock, pop, and jazz into a universal soundscape.

Quincy brought in Eddie Van Halen for Beat It’s guitar solo and Vincent Price’s eerie narration for the Thriller title track, creating one of the most iconic songs in pop history.

Reflecting on his role as a producer, Quincy once said: “If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says ‘it was the producer’s fault’; so if it does well, it should be your ‘fault’.”

Throughout his life, Jones encountered struggles, but his work was his remedy. In 1974, he nearly died from a brain aneurysm, while 12 years later he suffered from deep depression when the Academy snubbed The Colour Purple.

He was married three times and had seven children with five different women. Asked about his philosophy on life, he replied, “Cherish your mistakes, and you won’t keep making them over and over. It’s the same with heartbreaks and girls and everything else. Cherish them, they’ll put some wealth in you.”

Quincy died on Sunday night at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles – ­peacefully and surrounded by loved ones, his publicist said. In a statement, his family said: “With full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’s passing. 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.”

Sir Elton John said: “Nobody had a career as incredible as Quincy Jones. He played with the best and he produced the best. What a guy.” Will Smith added: “Quincy Jones is the true definition of a mentor, a father and a friend.” And Sir Michael Caine said: “My Celestial twin Quincy was a titan in the musical world.”