59 Fun Facts About Quincy Jones

In which city was Quincy Jones born in 1933?

Chicago's South Side was home until 1943, when his father took a wartime job at a navy shipyard on Puget Sound and moved the family west.

Which three Michael Jackson albums did Quincy Jones produce?

Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad. For Dangerous in 1991 Jackson moved on, co-producing the album himself with Teddy Riley, who said following Jones was really difficult.

Jones and Michael Jackson first worked together on which 1978 musical film?

The Wiz cast Jackson as the Scarecrow, and working together on its soundtrack led straight to Jones producing the singer's next solo album, which sold some 20 million copies.

Which rock guitarist did Quincy Jones phone to play the solo on Michael Jackson's "Beat It"?

Eddie Van Halen took the call for a crank and swore at Jones before realising who it was, then recorded the solo for free as a favour.

Which hip-hop and R&B magazine did Quincy Jones launch in 1993?

Vibe was his bid to give the hip-hop generation what Rolling Stone gave rock, and a 1998 Vibe article on street racers became the basis for The Fast and the Furious.

What sign did Jones tape to the studio entrance for the "We Are the World" session?

"Check Your Ego at the Door" met more than 40 of pop's biggest names as they arrived, because Jones had just one night to get them all onto a single record.

Who wrote "We Are the World"?

Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. Stevie Wonder was first lined up as Richie's co-writer, but he was tied up with his own recording, so Jackson took his place.

Which activist-entertainer's idea for an American Band Aid led to 'We Are the World'?

Harry Belafonte phoned the manager Ken Kragen just before Christmas 1984 wanting a benefit concert, and the plan turned into a record instead.

Whose 1963 hit "It's My Party" gave Jones his first No. 1 record as a producer?

Lesley Gore was 16 when Jones signed her from a demo tape, and he rushed copies of the single to radio stations to beat a rival version Phil Spector was preparing.

Which record label promoted Jones from music director to vice-president in the 1960s?

Mercury. Its boss Irving Green had rescued him with a personal loan after his touring big band went broke, and the promotion made him one of the first Black executives at a major label.

Which bandleader's orchestra took the 20-year-old Jones on a European tour in 1953?

Lionel Hampton had first hired him at 15, only for Hampton's wife and manager, Gladys, to send the boy off the band bus and back to school.

Jones moved to which city in 1957 to study with Nadia Boulanger, the teacher of Aaron Copland?

Paris gave him what New York would not: he said Black arrangers there were kept to horns and rhythm, while his job at the Barclay label let him write for strings.

Jones was in the TV studio band when which singer made his national television debut in 1956?

Elvis Presley's television debut was not on Ed Sullivan: he first sang on the Dorsey brothers' Stage Show in January 1956, months earlier, with Jones in the band.

Which rapper attacked Jones in print over his marriages, then fell in love with his daughter Kidada?

Tupac Shakur apologised after Kidada's sister answered him with a furious open letter, and he and Kidada were a couple when he was shot in Las Vegas in 1996.

Which rock star later attended Garfield High, the school where Quincy Jones studied?

Jimi Hendrix left Garfield without graduating; it was Jones the school honoured in 2008, naming its new performing arts centre after him.

Jones's swinging 1964 arrangement for Frank Sinatra and Count Basie made a signature hit of which song?

Fly Me to the Moon became so tied to the space programme that Buzz Aldrin is said to have played this recording once Apollo 11 reached the Moon.

What did Frank Sinatra leave Jones when he died in 1998?

His ring. Sinatra had worn the gold ring with his family crest from Sicily for 40 years, and Jones joked that in Sicily he needed no passport: he just flashed the ring.

Which Sidney Lumet drama about a Holocaust survivor in Harlem was the first American film Jones scored?

The Pawnbroker came at Sidney Lumet's invitation when Hollywood rarely hired Black composers, and its success led Jones to quit his record-company job and move to Los Angeles.

Jones composed "The Streetbeater", the funky theme tune of which 1970s sitcom?

Sanford and Son starred his old friend Redd Foxx, and the wordless theme lasted so well that Rolling Stone readers voted it among the ten best TV themes in 2011.

Jones's 1962 tune "Soul Bossa Nova" was later used as the theme for which 1997 comedy?

Austin Powers gave the 1962 tune a second life, and a year later it was also a theme of the football World Cup in France.

For which 1977 miniseries did Jones win his Primetime Emmy for music composition?

Roots. Its author Alex Haley was a close friend, and after they worked on the series Haley had genealogists trace Jones's own family tree.

Jones insisted that which untried newcomer be cast in the 1985 drama he produced, earning her an Oscar nomination?

Oprah Winfrey was a local talk-show host who had never acted; her performance as Sofia earned an Oscar nomination months before her own show went national in 1986.

Which director broke with his usual composer, John Williams, to let Quincy Jones score his 1985 drama?

Steven Spielberg. Jones, his co-producer on the film, wrote the score in under two months, and Williams did not miss another Spielberg feature until Bridge of Spies in 2015.

Jones's 1981 album The Dude yielded "Just Once" and "One Hundred Ways", both sung by whom?

James Ingram was a demo singer paid $50 a song when Jones heard his demo of "Just Once" and put him on the album; "One Hundred Ways" then won him his first Grammy.

Which Jones album, pairing veterans like Ella Fitzgerald with rappers like Ice-T, won the 1991 Grammy for Album of the Year?

Back on the Block was his comeback after a breakdown that sent him to recover in Tahiti, and its mix of bebop elders and rappers won him six Grammys in one night.

Which sitcom did Quincy Jones produce after its untested star auditioned at a party in his home?

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Lawyers drew up the first contract that night in a limousine outside, and the show's rich cousins were partly modelled on Jones's own children.

Which sketch show did Jones produce for Fox from 1995 to 2009?

Mad TV began when Jones and his partner David Salzman bought the rights to Mad magazine, and the sketch show they built on the name ran for 14 seasons.

Jones persuaded which trumpeter to revisit his 1950s Gil Evans material at Montreux in 1991?

Miles Davis had refused for years to revisit his past, then played the old scores while seriously ill; it became the last album he recorded, three months before he died.

Which late-night show did Jones host in February 1990, bringing along ten musical guests?

Saturday Night Live had him conduct its band through Dizzy Gillespie's "Manteca", which he dedicated to Nelson Mandela, who walked free from prison the next day.

What was the title of Jones's 2001 autobiography?

Q. The audiobook won the 2002 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album, and in the memoir he admitted that at one point he was dating five women at the same time.

Which George Gershwin piece did Jones introduce on screen in Disney's Fantasia 2000?

Rhapsody in Blue. On screen Jones explains that the segment's flowing line drawings of old New York were inspired by the caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

On which 2022 album by the Weeknd does Jones deliver a spoken monologue, "A Tale by Quincy"?

Dawn FM. In the interlude Jones recalls watching his mother taken away in a straitjacket when he was a boy, and how it shaped his relationships for the rest of his life.

Which Japanese film composer chose a stage name that echoes "Quincy Jones" when written in Japanese?

Joe Hisaishi, who scored Studio Ghibli's best-known films, picked characters that can be read "Kuishi Jo", close to how Japanese renders Jones's name.

Jones launched Qwest TV in 2017 as a subscription streaming service devoted to what?

Jazz and eclectic music. Jones, then 84, called it his most ambitious remaining project: a musical Netflix where young listeners could find great performances in one place.

Which actress named Jones is the younger daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton?

Rashida Jones co-directed the 2018 documentary Quincy about her father, and the film won the Grammy for Best Music Film.

Jones lived with which German actress from 1991 to 1995, fathering his daughter Kenya?

Kenya became a fashion model.

Why did Quincy Jones never learn to drive?

A deadly crash at age 14: a bus hit the car taking him and four friends to a rodeo, and he said he alone survived. He tried lessons later but could not go through with them.

What life-threatening condition led Jones to attend his own planned memorial service in 1974?

A brain aneurysm. Friends had already planned the tribute concert when he survived surgery, so he went along, with his neurologist beside him in case the excitement proved too much.

After surgery in 1974, doctors warned Jones that playing which instrument could kill him?

Trumpet. The strain of blowing could undo the surgeons' work; he tried anyway on a tour of Japan, felt a sharp new pain, and never played again.

Which British actor, born on the very same day as Quincy Jones in 1933, called him his "celestial twin"?

Michael Caine was born in London on the very day Jones was born, and in 1969 he starred in The Italian Job, the heist caper for which Jones wrote the score.

Jones produced the star-filled Lincoln Memorial concert that opened which president's inaugural celebrations?

Bill Clinton. In honour of the incoming president's own instrument, Jones lined up ten saxophonists to play "Heartbreak Hotel", the tune Clinton had played on television during the campaign.

What was conferred on Quincy Jones posthumously, two weeks after his death in November 2024?

Academy Honorary Award. The film academy had voted him the honorary Oscar months earlier, so a tribute planned for a living legend became a posthumous one at the Governors Awards.

Which British singer covered "It's My Party" on Quincy Jones's 2010 album Q: Soul Bossa Nostra?

Amy Winehouse recorded it with the producer Mark Ronson, and it turned out to be the last new recording released in her lifetime.

Genealogists found that Quincy Jones's father was half what?

Welsh, fitting for a man named Jones. He learned that his paternal grandfather was a Welsh slave owner, and spoke of the discovery on a 2009 visit to a music college in Cardiff.

Genealogists linked Jones's maternal ancestors, the Laniers, to which great American playwright?

Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams, and Jones credited his own musical streak to the same Huguenot family, which he said had produced court musicians.

Which school did Jones attend on a music scholarship for one semester before leaving for Berklee in Boston?

Seattle University. Its band had already performed a suite he wrote while still in high school, yet after a single semester he took another scholarship and headed east.

Which guitarist's album Give Me the Night was the first release on Quincy Jones's Qwest label?

George Benson. The 1980 album launched the label with three Grammys, and its title track, produced by Jones, gave the guitarist a top-five pop hit.

Which rapper starred in In the House, the 1995 sitcom from Quincy Jones's production company?

LL Cool J was its lead; NBC cancelled the show after two seasons, only for the UPN network to pick it up and keep it running.

Jones said which musician, a close friend since their teens, introduced him to heroin at 15?

Ray Charles, two years older, had befriended him when both were unknown teenagers; Jones said he used the drug for five months and quit after falling down five flights of stairs.

Which horror-film star did Jones bring in for the spoken finale of Michael Jackson's "Thriller"?

Vincent Price got the job because Jones's wife, the actress Peggy Lipton, knew him, and Jones recalled that he nailed the difficult rap in two takes.

Which lifetime honour, presented in Washington, did Jones receive in 2001?

The National Medal of Arts followed in 2011.

For which 2016 Broadway revival did Jones win a Tony Award as a producer?

The Color Purple brought him full circle three decades after he co-produced the film, and its star, Cynthia Erivo, won the Tony for best actress in a musical the same night.

The all-star "We Are the World" session began straight after which awards show?

The American Music Awards had already brought the stars to Los Angeles that night, so the session was booked to follow the show, and its host went straight from the stage to the studio.

Jones said which author tried to stop him scoring the 1967 film of the writer's own bestseller?

Truman Capote, by Jones's account, asked why a Black composer should score a film with no Black characters; the In Cold Blood music went on to earn an Oscar nomination.

Jones joined Bob Geldof and which rock singer to lobby Pope John Paul II on Third World debt in 1999?

Bono had invited him along, and Jones remembered the Vatican visit for the Pope's burgundy wingtip shoes, which he admired a little too audibly.

Which British band released its American records on Quincy Jones's Qwest label in the 1980s?

New Order, a post-punk band from Manchester, shared the Qwest roster with Frank Sinatra and the gospel singer Andraé Crouch.

Jones became a mentor to which British multi-instrumentalist after seeing his one-man YouTube covers?

Jacob Collier thought a friend was pranking him when Jones got in touch, and he turned down help with mixing because he wanted to do everything himself.

Jones scored which 1967 Sidney Poitier film that won the Oscar for Best Picture?

In the Heat of the Night took the top Oscar, yet its music was passed over: the Academy nominated Jones that year for his other 1967 score, In Cold Blood.

Jones said an all-star choir he assembled for which singer's 1982 track prepared him for "We Are the World"?

Donna Summer's "State of Independence" needed a big choir, so Jones called in famous friends, and he reckoned about a third of the famine single's singers had sung on it.