By Seyi Babalola
Quincy Jones, a musician and producer who collaborated with Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, and others, has died at the age of 91.
Arnold Robinson, Jones’ publicist, said he “passed away peacefully” on Sunday night at his Bel Air home.
“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing.
“And 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,” the family said in a statement.
Jones was best known as the producer of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ album.
Over the course of his more than 75-year career, he won 28 Grammy Awards, and Time magazine named him one of the most influential jazz musicians of the twentieth century.
He collaborated closely with Frank Sinatra early in his career and modified the crooner’s classic Fly Me To The Moon, transforming it from a waltz into a swing. In the film The Wiz, Jones found himself working with a 19-year-old Michael Jackson.
He went on to create Jackson’s Off the Wall album, which sold 20 million copies.
He also produced the pop star’s follow-ups, Thriller and Bad.
In 1985, Jones gathered 46 of America’s most popular singers of the time, including Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner and Cyndi Lauper to record We Are the World.
Jones co-wrote the song to raise money for those suffering from a devastating famine in Ethiopia.
The record was the US equivalent to Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas.
The hit reached number one in the UK and the US and was performed at Live Aid.
