Quincy Jones Biography

Composer / Music Producer / Business Personality

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Name at birth: Quincy Delight Jones, Jr.

Quincy Jones started as a trumpet player, touring with Lionel Hampton in the early 1950s. He soon gained a reputation as an arranger and composer, and was leading his own bands by the end of the decade. Since then he has worked as an arranger, composer and producer for some of the greatest performers of swing, jazz, blues and hip-hop, from Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra to Little Richard and Michael Jackson. Nicknamed "Q," Jones is also a noted composer of film and television scores who was especially active in the 1960s and 1970s. He is the founder of VIBE magazine and Qwest Broadcasting and the winner of over two dozen Grammys.

Extra credit: Film scores composed by Jones include In the Heat of the Night (1967, starring Sidney Poitier), The Anderson Tapes (1971, starring Sean Connery) and The Getaway (1972, starring Steve McQueen)... Jones's arrangement of "Fly Me To The Moon" was the first song played on the moon, during the lunar landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969.

Quincy Jones joins (unrelated) country legend Grandpa Jones in the loop Musical Joneses.

Other composers: John Williams, Bill Evans, Billy Strayhorn and Wynton Marsalis.

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