Quincy Jones, the multi-talented music titan whose vast legacy spans from producing Michael Jackson’s landmark album “Thriller” to writing award-winning film and television scores and working with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other artists died at age 91.

Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson, said he died Sunday evening at his home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, surrounded by family.

“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of the passing of our father and brother Quincy Jones,” the family said in a statement. “And while this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the beautiful life he lived and know there will never be another like him.”

Jones rose from Chicago’s South Side gang to the heights of show business, becoming one of the first black executives to thrive in Hollywood and building an extraordinary musical catalog that includes some of the richest moments of rhythm and American song. For years, it was unlikely to find a music lover who didn’t own at least one record bearing his name, or a leader in the entertainment industry and beyond who didn’t have some connection to him.

Jones has kept company with presidents and foreign leaders, movie stars and musicians, philanthropists and business leaders. He toured with Count Basie and Lionel Hampton, arranged records for Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, composed the soundtracks for “Roots” and “In the Heat of the Night,” organized President Bill Clinton’s first inaugural celebration and oversaw the recording of the stars of “We Are the World,” the 1985 charity record for the fight against famine in Africa.

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

In a career that began when records were still played on 78-rpm vinyl, the highest honors probably go to his productions with Jackson: “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” were near-universal albums in their style and appeal. Jones’ versatility and imagination helped spark Jackson’s explosive talents as he went from child star to “King of Pop.” On classic tracks like “Billie Jean” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” Jones and Jackson crafted a global soundscape from disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B, jazz and African chants. For “Thriller,” some of the most memorable touches came from Jones, who recruited Eddie Van Halen for a guitar solo on the genre-bending “Beat It” and brought in Vincent Price for a macabre voiceover on the title song.

“Thriller” sold more than 20 million copies in 1983 alone and rivaled among others the Eagles’ “Greatest Hits 1971-1975” as the best-selling album of all time.

“If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says ‘it’s the producers’ fault’; so if everything goes well, it should also be your “fault,” Jones said in a Library of Congress interview in 2016. “Traces don’t appear all at once. The producer must have the skills, experience and ability to bring their vision to fruition.

The list of his honors and awards takes up 18 pages in his 2001 autobiography “Q,” including 27 Grammys at the time (now 28), an honorary Oscar (now two) and an Emmy for “Roots.” He also received the Legion of Honor from France, the Rudolph Valentino Prize from the Republic of Italy, and a tribute from the Kennedy Center for his contributions to American culture. He was the subject of a 1990 documentary, “Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones” and a 2018 film by his daughter Rashida Jones. His memoirs made him a successful author.

Born in Chicago in 1933, Jones cited the hymns his mother sang at home as the first music he remembered. But he looked back ruefully on his childhood, once telling Oprah Winfrey: “There are two kinds of people: those who have caring parents or guardians, and those who don’t.” There is nothing in between. Jones’ mother suffered emotional problems and was eventually institutionalized, a loss that made the world “feel senseless” to Quincy. He spent much of his time in Chicago on the streets, in gangs, stealing and fighting.

“They nailed my hand to a fence with a switchblade, man,” he told the AP in 2018, showing a scar from his childhood.

Music saved him. As a child, he learned that a neighbor in Chicago owned a piano, and he soon played it constantly himself. His father moved to Washington state when Quincy was 10, and his world changed at a neighborhood rec center. Jones and some friends had broken into the kitchen and helped themselves to a lemon meringue pie when Jones noticed a small room nearby with a stage. On stage, there was a piano.

“I went up there, stopped, stared, then tinkled on it for a while,” he wrote in his autobiography. “That’s where I started to find peace. I was 11 years old. I knew this was it for me. Forever.”

A few years later, he played trumpet and became friends with a young blind musician named Ray Charles, who became a lifelong friend. He was talented enough to win a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out when Hampton invited him to tour with his band. Jones later worked as an independent composer, conductor, arranger and producer. As a teenager, he supported Billie Holiday. In his twenties, he toured with his own band.

“We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving,” Jones later told Musician magazine. “That’s when I discovered there was music and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.

As a music director, he overcame racial barriers by becoming a vice president at Mercury Records in the early 1960s. In 1971, he became the first black music director of the Academy Awards. The first film he produced, “The Color Purple,” received 11 Academy Award nominations in 1986 (but, much to his disappointment, no wins). In partnership with Time Warner, he created Quincy Jones Entertainment, which included the pop culture magazine Vibe and Qwest Broadcasting. The company was sold for $270 million in 1999.

“My business philosophy has always had the same roots as my personal credo: to take talented people on their own terms and treat them fairly and with respect, no matter who they are or where they come from,” he said. writes Jones in his autobiography. .

He was comfortable with virtually every form of American music, whether setting Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” to a punchy, swinging beat and nostalgic flute or opening his production of ” In the Heat of the Night” by Charles with a vigorous tenor sax solo. He has worked with jazz giants (Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Duke Ellington), rappers (Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J), crooners (Sinatra, Tony Bennett), pop singers (Lesley Gore) and stars of the rhythm and blues (Chaka Khan, rapper). and singer Queen Latifah).

On “We are the World” alone, artists included Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen. He co-wrote hits for Jackson — “PYT (Pretty Young Thing” — and Donna Summer — “Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger) — and had songs sampled by Tupac Shakur, Kanye West and others rappers He even composed the theme song for the sitcom “Sanford and Son.”

Jones was a facilitator and star maker. He gave Will Smith a key break in the hit television series “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” produced by Jones, and through “The Color Purple” he introduced Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg to moviegoers. Beginning in the 1960s, he composed more than 35 film scores, including “The Pawnbroker,” “In the Heat of the Night,” and “In Cold Blood.”

He called notation “a multifaceted process, an abstract combination of science and soul.”

Jones’ work on the soundtrack for “The Wiz” led to his partnership with Jackson, who starred in the 1978 film. In an essay published in Time magazine after Jackson’s death, in 2009, Jones recalled that the singer kept pieces of paper with him containing thoughts of famous thinkers. When Jones asked him about the origins of a passage, Jackson replied “Socrates”, but pronounced it “SO-crayts”. Jones corrected him: “Michael, it’s SOCK-ra-tees.”

“And the look he gave me in that moment just made me say, because I had been impressed by everything I had seen in him during the rehearsal process, ‘I.’ would love to try producing your album.” Jones called back. “And he came back and told the people at Epic Records, and they said, ‘No way, Quincy is too jazzy.’ Michael was persistent, and he and his managers came back and said, “Quincy is producing the album.” at the time, and this album saved all the jobs of people who thought I wasn’t the right person. That’s how it works.

Tensions arose after Jackson’s death. In 2013, Jones sued Jackson estateclaiming he was owed millions in royalties and production fees on some of the superstar’s biggest hits. In a 2018 interview with New York magazine, he called Jackson “as Machiavellian as they come” and alleged that he took material from others.

Jones was addicted to work and play, and sometimes suffered from it. He nearly died of a brain aneurysm in 1974 and became deeply depressed in the 1980s after “The Color Purple” was snubbed by Oscar voters; he never received a competitive Oscar. A father of seven children and five mothers, Jones describes himself as a “dog” who had countless lovers around the world. He was married three times, his wives including actress Peggy Lipton.

“For me, loving a woman is one of the most natural, blissful, rewarding – and dare I say, religious – acts in the world,” he wrote.

He was not an activist in his early years, but changed after attending the funeral of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and later befriended the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Jones was dedicated to philanthropy, stating that “the best and only useful aspect of fame and celebrity is having a platform to help others.”

His causes included fighting HIV and AIDS, educating children, and helping the poor around the world. He founded Quincy Jones Listen Up! Foundation for connecting young people to music, culture and technology, and said he was driven throughout his life “by a spirit of adventure and criminal optimism”.

“Life is like a dream, said the Spanish poet and philosopher Federico Garcia Lorca,” Jones wrote in his memoir. “Mine was Technicolor, with full Dolby sound through THX amplification, before they knew what those systems were.”

Along with Rashida, Jones is survived by his daughters Jolie Jones Levine, Rachel Jones, Martina Jones, Kidada Jones and Kenya Kinski-Jones; son Quincy Jones III; brother Richard Jones and sisters Theresa Frank and Margie Jay.