Remembering the Rare and Extraordinary Life of Quincy Jones With the passing of the legendary musician, composer, arranger, producer, and all-around media mogul, Berklee remembers one of its earliest and most prominent alums with a tribute and a retrospective playlist.
By
Bryan Parys
November 4, 2024
Quincy Jones at the 1983 Berklee commencement ceremony, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate.
Image courtesy of the Berklee Archives
What do Michael Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, and Jacob Collier have in common? They all have Quincy Jones '51 '83H to thank for playing a part in their rise to fame. They are three of countless others. In many ways, his life could be arranged as a film montage, revealing his presence at a host of major moments in American history.
Picture it:
There he is at age 14 introducing himself to his 16-year-old schoolmate Ray Charles at the Black Elks Club in Seattle.
Moving across the country on a scholarship to attend Schillinger House (which would later become Berklee College of Music).
Joining Lionel Hamptons band at age 20, where Monk Montgomery was given-by Leo Fender himself-one of the first electric basses.
Playing second trumpet on Heartbreak Hotel for Elvis Presley's first six television performances in 1956.
A year later moving to Paris to study with composer Nadia Boulanger, who would go on to teach the preeminent minimalist composer Philip Glass.
And this is all before he turns 30, let alone all that was to become an unmatched career of influence in music, film, television, philanthropy, and beyond, that garnered innumerable accolades, inculding 28 Grammys-the third most amount of wins ever.
An undated photo of Jones during his time as a Berklee student.
Image courtesy of the Berklee Archives
If Jones had stuck to just one creative path out of the countless trails he blazed throughout his 91 years, he would still be a legend. But his curiosity and ambitions were endless and unbound by genre. In what nowadays we'd call a growth mindset, Jones saw his career as one of constant evolution, not a series of sector pivots. As he described it to Mark Small, founder and former editor of Berklee Today, in the spring 1995 issue of the magazine, It was an expansion. I didnt shift gears; I just went into another territory.
Terri Lyne Carrington, founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice was the house drummer for Joness late-night TV show Vibe, and says that his ability to weave between genres and his pure passion about good music, no matter the style, as well the ability to remain relevant through many musical trends, will always make him a role model for me and shoulders to stand on.
As an advocate for Black culture, he was a force. He was the first African American to gain an upper-level executive position at a music label (as vice president of Mercury Records) as well as to score a major motion picture (for Sidney Lumet's 1964 film The Pawnbroker). He helmed production credits for a large portion Michael Jackson's imperial era, including Thriller, which remains the best-selling album of all time. Jones had prominent roles in the making of the TV series Roots (1977), the musical The Wiz (1978), and the film The Color Purple (1985), all of which have become landmarks for centering Black history and experiences in American visual media.
I wouldnt trade the time that I got on earth for anything-it was just right.
- Quincy Jones 51 83H, from a 1995 interview in Berklee Today
From big band to bebop, R&B to hip-hop, classical to pop, Jones was an early adopter and innovator, where many at the time saw these genres as independent of each other. Everybody keeps getting hung up with categories, he told Small in 1995. Black music feels like a music that is a voice of the whole people, so it will jump around to different sources at various times-from rhythm and blues to delta blues, or jazz. . . . It is always going to be very vital to what is going on.
Jones's ties with Berklee only strengthened in the decades after he attended as a student. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1983 and made countless visits to campus over the years. Former Berklee President Roger H. Brown, who got know Jones over the years, says that Quincy loved to talk about the larger world. If you wanna know, you gotta go, he would say, meaning, you have to travel, understand other cultures and transcend the artificial boundaries that keep us divided. His life was like his music and reflected his voracious appetite for experience, innovation and connection. He was a global ambassador for the Board of Trustees, and through one of his organizations, the Quincy Jones Musiq Consortium, he partnered with Berklee City Music, where he also served as the national honorary ambassador.
I wouldnt trade the time that I got on earth for anything-it was just right, he told Berklee Today. Ive felt and experienced a lot of different attitudes and eras. I thank God for it.
Take a listen to just a small sample of the wide-ranging music that Jones created, produced, arranged, or composed over the course of his legendary career in the following playlist:
More Reflections on Quincy Jones from the Berklee Community
Boston Globe: Krystal Banfield, vice president for education outreach, remembers Quincy Jones as a champion for expanding music education to underserved communities through his role with Berklee City Music.
NBC Boston: Faculty Joe Bennett and Giorgi Mikadze remember Jones for embodying Berklee's values of authenticity and creating a blueprint for producers.
Related Categories
News
Playlists
Most Popular
Jim Lucchese
Image by Kelly Davidson
Jim Lucchese Named Berklee's Fifth President A 20-year music industry veteran and a committed artist advocate with deep Berklee roots, Lucche
Most recent headlines
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
KPop Demon Hunters Stars Visit Berklee for Weeklong Celebration Andrew Choi and EJAE, who voiced the film's main characters and contributed to its soundtr...
17/12/2025
With the new season of Dancing with the Stars shimmering in the not-too-distant future this New Year, the celebrity and dancer pairings of the twelve couples ha...
16/12/2025
Hawkins has landed on Spotify, just in time for Stranger Things Season 5, Volume...
16/12/2025
Wherever you are, your favorite music and audio content should go seamlessly with you. That's why Spotify has partnered with NAVER Corp, Korea's leading...
16/12/2025
2025 Wrapped arrived bigger and bolder than ever. This year's experience is designed to be ultra personal and shareable, with new features like Wrapped Part...
16/12/2025
Three 12-kilowatt Advanced Electric Propulsion System thrusters, supplied by L3Harris Technologies, form the core of Gateway's propulsion system. Pictured i...
16/12/2025
The challenge facing America's defense industrial base is not just about speed - its about rebuilding the foundation that makes speed possible. Our nations ...
16/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
16/12/2025
SEVILLE, Spain Canal Sur, the public broadcasting service for Andalusia, Spain, has completed a total technology refresh based on Pebble's resilient, softwa...
16/12/2025
NEW YORK Teleprompting hardware provider Telescript International has acquired all software code and intellectual property previously owned by Telescript West. ...
16/12/2025
As cable operators face increased competition from 5G fixed wireless access providers, a new report from Ookla Research finds that T-Mobile is the FWA speed lea...
16/12/2025
Apple has announced a major upgrade to the Apple TV app for device owners outside the Apple ecosystem with news that the Apple TV app for Android now supports G...
16/12/2025
Space42 grows Direct-to-Device partner ecosystem through a Memorandum of Underst...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON Announces Release Date for Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2025 R...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON's Kyivstar Invests in Renewable Energy in Ukraine with Acq...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Emma Appleton, Fares Fares, Frida Gustavsson and Jakob Oftebro...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Docu-reality My Korean Boyfriend Gets a Trailer and Premiere D...
16/12/2025
Harmonic's XOS Advanced Media Processor Improves Streaming Video Quality and Boosts Viewer Engagement SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 16, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: ...
16/12/2025
RT Sport Awards 2025 live on RT One and RT Player at 8:05pm on Saturday 20 December.
On Saturday 20 December live on RT One and RT Player at the earlier t...
16/12/2025
Singer -songwriter Brian Kennedy has been announced as the final celebrity dance...
15/12/2025
Harlem Globetrotters Celebrate 100th Anniversary With New Brand Campaign From Th...
15/12/2025
Top L-R: La Tierra Del Valor (The Home of the Brave), Mangittatuarjuk (The Gnawe...
15/12/2025
L3Harris will leverage 15 years of experience supporting the E-4B Nightwatch and...
15/12/2025
CONWAY, Ark. In a notable example of how the loss of federal funding is forcing public stations to make massive cuts and operational changes, the statewide pub...
15/12/2025
BOULDER, Colo. Public Media Venture Group (PMVG), Venture Technologies Group (VTG), and WQED have completed a multipart agreement that they say will significant...
15/12/2025
Cape Town, November 13, 2025 - SES and International artist and humanitarian, Fo...
15/12/2025
Luxembourg, December 15, 2025 - SES, a leading space solutions company, and Abra Group launched fast and reliable multi-orbit inflight connectivity service on t...
15/12/2025
How Rivian s Design Puts Drivers First-And Why That Matters Published on Dec 15, 2025 Categories: Business Solutions
LinkedIn Corporate Communications
Sha...
15/12/2025
Space42 and Cobham Satcom completed the full range of advanced terminals for the...
15/12/2025
15 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan Delivers First Starlink Direct to Cel...
15/12/2025
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor finds himself the topic of year's cracker jokes
Oasis, David Harbour, Celebrity Traitors and Angela Rayner all feature in this y...
15/12/2025
Comscore Expands Cross-Platform Campaign Measurement to Include Audio and Social New capabilities strengthen cross-platform campaign reporting suite; CCR rebran...
15/12/2025
NVIDIA today announced it has acquired SchedMD - the leading developer of Slurm, an open-source workload management system for high-performance computing (HPC) ...
15/12/2025
RT .ie has reached one billion page views this year and is on track to finish 2025 2% ahead of last year. Average time spent on the site is up 3% on 2024, with ...
15/12/2025
Modern workflows showcase the endless possibilities of generative and agentic AI on PCs.
Of many, some examples include tuning a chatbot to handle product-supp...
13/12/2025
Powering Client Growth: Horizon Deepens Nielsen Partnership, Enabling More Effic...
13/12/2025
In a move that will help it offer more flexible and less costly programming options, YouTube TV has announced that it will be launching YouTube TV Plans with mo...
13/12/2025
SINGAPORE Magna Systems has designed, built and completed what is believed to be the first full UHD and IP-based OB truck in Southeast Asia for a Singapore medi...
12/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Everything You Need to Know for Next Week's Big Sho...
12/12/2025
Hailey Gates at the Atropia premiere (photo by George Pimentel / Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)...
12/12/2025
Last month, Spotify announced a new collaboration with the ATP Tour, the global governing body of men's professional tennis, aimed at bringing the next gene...
Remembering the Rare and Extraordinary Life of Quincy Jones With the passing of the legendary musician, composer, arranger, producer, and all-around media mogul, Berklee remembers one of its earliest and most prominent alums with a tribute and a retrospective playlist.
