Quincy Jones, Forever a Great Legend in a World Too Small

If The Gods Of Music Have Any Sense, They’ll Be Playing Thriller On A Loop

November 3, 2024. The world goes a little quieter, a little emptier, and if you’re paying close enough attention, a lot less soulful. Quincy Jones – yes, that Quincy Jones, the father of modern music – is no longer with us. Ninety-one years of filling every corner of life with rhythm, and yesterday, he bowed out on his own terms at his California home. Cause of death? Not a whisper. Maybe that’s how legends go: leaving a legacy big enough to keep us guessing but clear enough to fill the gaps in human history.

For those of you who don’t quite get it, Jones was a musician, producer, and composer. He was the man who invented the soundtrack to our lives. Eighty Grammy nominations, 28 wins. The guy played the game, rewriting the rulebook. He brushed shoulders and recorded tracks with every name that mattered: Sinatra, Jackson, Davis, Summer. Hell, if you’re listening to music today, there’s probably a piece of Quincy in it, whether it’s a bassline, a horn riff, or that electric snap you feel in your bones.

A Name on a Jazz Club Sign, a Musical Earthquake

But let’s rewind, back to Chicago, 1933. Imagine a skinny kid, Quincy Delight Jones Jr., grabbing a trumpet at age 10. A trumpet that would lead him out of the South Side and into the universe. Before he even hit adulthood, he was sharing a school band with a kid named Ray Charles. A name on a jazz club sign, a musical earthquake. By the time Jones hit Berklee College of Music, he was practically vibrating with talent. He took off on tour, becoming Dizzy Gillespie’s right-hand man, and by the time the 1950s rolled around, he was conducting for Ray Charles and Dinah Washington. You didn’t hear jazz in the 1950s without hearing Quincy.

But the jazz scene? That was just the appetizer. Jones was the guy who flipped genres like he was changing radio stations. Pop, R&B, rap, jazz. He tore through them all with ferocity and flair. By the 1960s, he’d somehow wedged himself into the cushy seat of Mercury Records’ vice president, then tore into film and TV scoring. Forty movies, hundreds of TV shows. It was as if he had a goddamn monopoly on sound.

Thriller: The Soundtrack to a Global Fever

Let’s not pretend the 1980s were anything less than the Quincy-Jackson decade. Sure, Michael Jackson was already a star, but Quincy? He turned him into a nuclear-level icon. Off the Wall, Thriller, Bad. Albums that defined and built the decade. Thriller was the soundtrack to a global fever. Jones melded Jackson into the moonwalking demigod that the world didn’t even know it needed.

Beyond the music, he was a humanitarian. We Are the World – that was his brainchild, a song to rattle cages and raise millions to combat famine in Africa. Quincy made music, rewriting the culture. He produced The Color Purple and co-produced The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He launched Vibe magazine and eventually his streaming service, Qwest TV. Not a drop of energy wasted. Everything he did left a footprint that mattered.

His influence didn’t stop with the old guard, either. Travis Scott and Young Thug’s “Out West”? Quincy was right there. The Weeknd’s Dawn FM? Quincy had a part in that too, sharing trauma and survival. The man had range, from 20th-century jazz clubs to 21st-century trap beats. In 2021, he was inducted into the Black Music Walk of Fame, and rightly so.

Quincy Jones Forever Made Music, Rewriting the Culture

And now? Now, we’re left with the heartache of absence. It was a sleepless night for me, grappling with the reality of Quincy’s departure, trying to digest the gravity of this loss. And the road ahead? It just got a whole lot darker for the music industry. Losing a legend like Quincy is like a galaxy losing its brightest star. His family said it best: he was “one of a kind,” an “essence” of love and joy wrapped up in a human form. But don’t kid yourself. His heart is stitched into every beat we’ll ever listen to, the undying pulse of modern music.

Quincy Jones is gone, but the soundscape he left behind’s forever. And if the gods of music have any sense, they’ll be playing Thriller on a loop at the gates to let him in.