Remembering Quincy Jones: 10 career-spanning songs to celebrate his legacy

By APNovember 04, 2024 - 7:29pm

Few artists have legacies so mammoth their very name could be considered synonymous with the music industry, but then again, most musicians are not the prodigious producer Quincy Jones.

The larger-than-life figure died on October 3, 2024, at his Los Angeles home, surrounded by his family. He was 91 and scheduled to receive an honorary Academy Award later this month.

Across his career, the 28-time Grammy Award-winning Jones worked with everyone from Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder (pictured in 1987) with hundreds in between. The best way to celebrate his legacy, of course, is to listen to the music he made.

Read on to see the 10 (of many) career-spanning songs that are part of Quincy Jones' monumental legacy.

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Those looking to kickstart their Jones listening journey at the very beginning of his career could do so with Liza, from his first album, Jazz Abroad, a joint release with Roy Haynes.

For everyone else, look to his arrangements on 1963's Ella and Basie!, an album by Fitzgerald with Count Basie's orchestra.

Moving from just vocals and bass before building into its own grandness – not to mention, a delightful scat solo from Fitzgerald – Honeysuckle Rose from the album is an exemplar of Jones' jazz brilliance.

Pictured here is Jones (second from right) with Fitzgerald (right), John Travolta (left) and Whoopi Goldberg (second from left).

Teenage heartbreak met its match on Lesley Gore's It's My Party, recorded when its pop singer was still in her own adolescence.

Jones produced the record, with its addictive melodies, percussion and cheerful horn section – emotionally and diametrically opposed to its narrative tale of a girl getting dumped by her boyfriend for her best friend on her birthday.

You'd cry, too, if it happened to you.

Pictured here is Jones (left), Millie Small (centre) and Gore (right) in 1964.

Jones' legacy is defined by an idiosyncratic ability to master various American musical forms with an apparent ease.

That is the case of this canonised cover by Frank Sinatra, Fly Me to the Moon, from Sinatra's 1964 album, It Might as Well Be Swing, arranged by Jones.

The producer set the song to a punchy, swinging rhythm and wistful flute, and the rest is history.

You can also thank Jones for The Best Is Yet to Come.

Pictured here are Jones and Sinatra in 1991.

Jones scored the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night, which includes its R&B-gospel title track, In the Heat of the Night, performed by his good friend Ray Charles (pictured).

It is soul committed to wax, amplified by the inclusion of a lusty tenor sax solo.

Perhaps Jones' best-known production partnership is the one he had with Michael Jackson, working with the King of Pop on his culture-shifting albums, 1979's Off the Wall, 1982's Thriller and 1987's Bad.

The pair met while working on the 1978 movie The Wiz – Jones worked on its soundtrack, and Jackson was its star.

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough, with its inventive disco-funk, ambitious production and Jackson's signature falsetto set the stage for the massive career to come.

Pictured here are Jones and Jackson at the Grammys in 1984.

Put it in the pantheon of great piano ballads: On Jones' 1981 album The Dude, James Ingram takes over lead vocal duties for Just Once, the big-hearted and bigger-feelings track.

Jones is pictured here writing music in his home in 1974.

What songs are more immediately recognisable? An elongated drum and bass lick introduce Billie Jean, one of the great genre-averse pop songs of all time, from Jackson's record-breaking Thriller album.

Here, Jones' production is post-disco, but still funky, still prescient. And time tells the greatest tale: Thriller sold more than 20 million copies in 1983 alone and has contended with the Eagles' Greatest Hits 1971-1975 among others as the best-selling album of all time.

Pictured here are Jones, Jackson and Peggy Lipton in New York City.

Nearly four decades ago, some of the biggest stars on the planet – Jackson, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson and Bruce Springsteen among them – came together for an all-night recording session.

The result was We Are the World, a pop superhit overseen by Jones, the 1985 charity record for famine relief in Africa.

Lionel Richie, who co-wrote We Are the World and was among the featured singers, would call Jones "the master orchestrator".

Back in 1976, Jones produced the Brothers Johnson's R&B hit, I'll Be Good to You, and then re-recorded the track with Ray Charles and Chaka Khan – an ebullient number with contemporary production, completely transforming the classic.

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