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
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
06/07/2026
Long-developed relationships and informal access, three production models, and c...
06/07/2026
The deal follows Lumine's recent acquisition of Synamedia's video-networ...
06/07/2026
This former SportsCenter producer is shaping local-team studio coverage to surro...
06/07/2026
IMS Productions and FOX Sports deployed more than 100 cameras, 32 onboard feeds,...
06/07/2026
Lumine Group Inc. has announced the completion of its acquisition of the Video Network Business from Synamedia. The business will operate as a standalone compan...
06/07/2026
NASCAR has announced a content and commercial partnership with Motorsport Network, a motorsports and automotive media platform, to distribute NASCAR original co...
06/07/2026
Versant Media Group has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Full Swing, a sports technology company, from Bruin Capital and a group of minority investor...
06/07/2026
DAZN has announced global broadcast rights to 3ICE, a professional hockey format featuring three skaters and a goalkeeper per side, with no power plays or offsi...
06/07/2026
Bundle gains 100 new synths & more
Synth Anthology 5 the largest and most feature-packed edition of UVI's hardware synth emulation bundle, bringing toge...
06/07/2026
Available now via free firmware update
MOTU have just announced that three of their popular audio interfaces now boast official Milan Certification. The 16A...
06/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz completes Hunter Preliminary Design Review for the Integrated Co...
06/07/2026
The R&S IMAGER from Rohde & Schwarz uses millimeter wave imaging to inspect the ...
06/07/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
06/07/2026
Digital Domain Appoints Industry Veteran Patrick Davenport as Executive Vice Pre...
06/07/2026
Gravity Media USA appoints Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development
Brie Clayton July 6, 2026
0 Comments
The strategic new appointment supports...
06/07/2026
Remote Editing Without Cloud Storage in Resolve
Michael Cioni July 6, 2026
0 Comments
This is a step-by-step guide that demonstrates how to setup your...
06/07/2026
Automatic Caption Translation in Adobe Premiere Pro
Colin Smith July 6, 2026
0 Comments
Here I showcase the innovative automatic caption translation f...
06/07/2026
Flavor's First Ever Managing Director Neal Cohen Retires; Longstanding Execu...
06/07/2026
How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Medtech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might think...
06/07/2026
Zhongyi Optics unveils the Dreamy Zone T1 FF Cine Lens Series on Indiegogo with ...
06/07/2026
Techtel debuts insyght: making ST 2110 media discovery easy
intellisphereinsyght2026
6 July Written By Suzanne Costello
Sydney, Australia - 06 July 2026 T...
06/07/2026
Monday 6 July 2026
Sky agrees to acquire ITV Media & Entertainment, creating a ...
06/07/2026
Fresh from his World Cup heroics with Cabo Verde, Roberto Pico' Lopes will join the RT panel for Argentina v Egypt tomorrow and for the England v Norway q...
06/07/2026
Nations have long invested in domestic infrastructure to advance their economies, protect and use their data, and take advantage of technology opportunities in ...
06/07/2026
Every year, the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) reveals where thousands of AI researchers have decided to put their work.
This year's ...
06/07/2026
A death can be unsuspicious, but it has to be explained
What happened to Ke...
05/07/2026
We've gone to another level of integrating the graphics into the set architecture' - Zac Fields, SVP, Graphic Technology and Integration, FOX Sports...
05/07/2026
Browser-based and desktop apps available
Digital Sunset Studios have been busy working on an interesting project: a free software tool that provides compute...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
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.
